A life less Grimm
by LittleBounce
Summary: Before Homicide and Hank, there was Special Victims Unit, and Jan. Nick earns his way off the beat and behind a detective's desk where he belongs, and where he has a reasonably peaceful life, unknowingly applying Grimm skills while his friendly giant Koninglowen partner tries to keep the notion of 'wesen' a secret from him... An accumulative series of light short stories :)
1. Chapter 1

**A couple of people had suggested I write some early-years pieces with Nick before he becomes a Grimm, and his first partner Jan, who he finds (many, many years later) is actually wesen. And being a Koninglowen is a hard secret to keep when you're pathologically honest (as Jan is). It's been fun building younger versions of Lt. Renard, Wu and Hank in there, as well….**

**And here we go. It's going to be some one-shot stories under the same 'Life less Grimm' title, but this first 'short story' was threatening to turn into about 30 pages, so I've cut it in half. I hope you enjoy – second half coming up really soon!**

**X x X**

Nick stared out the window as he and Fuller headed back to Portland PD, having to hold himself up in his seat as the yammering next to him threatened to pound him down and down. If the guy didn't care about him so much, he'd have hit him by now. Well, no, he wouldn't. Course not. But he would certainly have told him to shut the hell up quite some time ago.

"...and those cases are just _sick, _man. I'm telling you - you're a nice kid―"

"I'm not a kid!"

"―and that role will change you. You'll have no personal time. You do the 'hours that the job requires'. That love life you've been looking for? Won't happen. If it does, you'll last a year and then the woman in your life will get jealous of your marriage to your job―"

"You want to encourage me some more?" Nick flung his hands up, but Fuller was on a roll.

"...I mean, why not pick a really nice peaceful team like Homicide or grand theft?"

"Because you have to do your years in other squads first. No Captain's going to let me go straight to Homicide!"

"I know the route to detective, Nick. You've barely done your street time. Three years out of the academy?"

"Four."

"And applying to start out in Special Victims Unit? You may as _well_ go straight to Homicide! SVU will give you nightmares. Child abuse. Battered wives. Prostitutes given the ripper treatment―"

"Ok, enough," Nick barked, and felt a little bad as Fuller silenced abruptly, lips pinched and grey-haired fingers heavy on the steering wheel. He softened his tone a little. Fuller had been with him since he left the academy. His feelings mattered. "I've applied for detective. That's as far as I've got. I may fail everything, ok?"

"Yeah, right."

"Well if you seem so confident that I won't fail the tests, what makes you think I can't handle the jobs?"

"It's not about you being unable to handle the jobs. It's about whether the jobs are going to handle _you_ right. Good guys become detectives then become hardened shits. Don't want to see that happen to you."

Nick sighed a little. Aunt Marie got like this sometimes, too. Fuller had this way of assuming that what happened in his own family was absolutely going to happen everywhere else. His son had become a detective, and then gotten ambitious. Nick got the impression that there was some sneering involved, with the son feeling that he'd very much 'overtaken' his old man. "Whelan," he said carefully, "Is this really about me becoming a detective, or is it about me having to transfer out of Portland if I get the post I want?"

Fuller gave him a long, stony look, his watery blue eyes drilling him out. Then eventually cracked a reluctant smile. "Both, son. Both."

The despatch radio crackled, saving Nick from having to find a reply. He picked up. "Unit 332 responding."

"Domestic disturbance reported at apartment 512 on 230 Freeland. A neighbour heard a scream and a shot fired. Detective Vergeer's already en route, so please provide whatever backup required."

"If we get there first, we're going in first," Fuller yelled from his driving seat as he performed a heart-stopping U-turn on Buckman Drive.

"I'll relay that to Vergeer," the despatch operator muttered and clicked off.

Nick put the radio down. "Fer-who?"

"Who cares? You know, Gresham's a mess with Helen Wilson running the place. They're all process and no uniform, over there. It's why we're having to cover their patch all the time."

Nick gritted his teeth and snapped on siren and lights before Fuller could scare the crap out of another school-run mom with his wild lane weaving. Captain Wilson had always been perfectly pleasant to him. He'd taken to dropping evidence between the precincts at shift-end. Fuller called this sucking-up: _he_ felt it was sensible to get to know the people he might end up working for. He wouldn't mind working under Lieutenant Renard, from West Side. He was kind of quiet and looked grave enough to model for the fifth face of Mount Rushmore, but he was civil. Captain DeMarcos... Nick shuddered just thinking about Portland's shouty, short-assed megalomaniac. Everyone was quietly begging for him to retire.

"...You're not listening to me, are you, Nick?"

"You're kind of going into repeat, now," Nick muttered. "Ok - we're there. Let's go."

Fuller bolted up the stairs first as he always did, service piece out like he planned to encounter a terrorist at every landing. Nick overtook on the third floor while Fuller stopped to wheeze, then a huge, _huge_ guy in a dark brown leather jacket bounded past him, taking the stairs three at a time.

Nick stepped up his pace a little and found the guy waiting for him at the top of the fifth landing with hand outstretched and a friendly smile with a prominent left eye tooth. He produced ID as soon as Nick cleared the top step and he felt a tiny thrill of enthusiasm to be working, however temporarily, with someone who was already in SVU. But primarily, Nick struggled to get past the man's vastness. He felt his entire hand, save his thumb, disappear into Vergeer's light grip. "You're Detective… uh… Ver-geer?"

"Fver-gkay-er, but call me Jan. We can work on the Dutch-surname-from-hell later. Are you guys here for the domestic disturbance in 512?"

"Yeah." Nick followed Jan down the winding corridors. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, but even if Jan had been following the door numbering as a guide, as Nick would've had to do, the sounds of crashing and banging would've drawn them to the right spot. Jan covered ground quickly, but Nick didn't spot any real urgency in his pace.

"The guy inside is Benji Orson. He's something of a 'repeat customer', unfortunately. We go back a little way. Do you mind if I…?"

Nick took Jan's vague gesture at the door of 512 to mean 'go first', and made an equally vague gesture to suggest that Jan should knock himself out.

Jan leant against the door jamb, his forearm resting over the top of the frame. "Benji! This has to stop right _now_. Let me in. Don't make things difficult for yourself."

Nick stared. "Are you always this chilled about domestic assault?"

"It's not an assault, it's a disturbance. If there's any beating or murdering going on, it'll be happening on his TV, not in the apartment." Jan hammered on the door. "Benji, we talked about this. You're going to get yourself evicted and then where will you go?"

"What's up with him?" Nick flinched as he heard something smashing from within, but tuned in to the screams he could hear: they were identical, each one of them. Like something was on rewind.

"He's been labouring under the misapprehension that he's a superhero."

Nick made full contact with Jan's dark green pupils, but the guy was completely sincere. "So, uh… is he trying to rescue people on the TV?"

"This is one of his more harmless quirks, believe me. I've threatened him with noise abatement orders before, but sadly he just won't be told. He knows he's getting arrested this time." Jan sighed and banged on the door again. "You have one minute to open up, then I'm coming in!"

"I don't want to seem rude, but if this is just about a noisy neighbour, why are SVU involved?"

Vergeer rubbed the back of his head ruefully. "Sorry. I should explain. I'm not here as an SVU detective. I just have a lot of experience in dealing with Benji. He's an awkward character."

The guy had a calming voice. A calming presence in general. Nick could imagine him being able to get people to open doors when others had failed. "Awkward how?"

"Well, when he feels cornered, he― Whoa, don't'!" Vergeer lunged suddenly behind Nick and grabbed Fuller's wrist just as he was about to pound on the door.

"What the… Get off, man!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to grab ―"

"Looked pretty …delib'rut to me." Fuller tried to gather breath to yell 'Portland PD' through the door, but he was purple, wheezy and sweaty from his effort of conquering the stairs and staggered a little. Nick put a hand on his shoulder, concerned, and a little embarrassed that he'd only just noticed how far behind they'd left him.

Vergeer propped Fuller up against the wall. "Are you alright?"

"_I'm _fine!" Fuller pointed indignantly at the sounds of female screaming on the other side of the door. "They're not! I'm…following protocol!"

"And that's absolutely correct, but in Benji's case, we can't panic him. He has this medical condition which makes him―"

"I don't give a… damn whether he… panics or not!" Fuller stuck his hands on his hips, still dripping and breathless. "Look, I… know you SVU guys think you're 'all that', but this… empathise-with-the-perp shit doesn't wash with me. We've been called out and… can't leave till we've seen clean, bloodless carpet for ourselves."

Nick looked pleadingly at his partner. Fuller's anti-detective antagonism had moved from being annoying to being obstructive. "Whelan, please listen..."

Fuller finally seemed to pick up on the fact that it was exactly the same scream coming through the door over and over. He glared at Nick, making him feel like he'd swapped sides in some great cold war. "Fine. You guys do all the pussy-footing you need to do. I'm going back to Portland."

"Whelan―"

"Just make sure the place's clean alright, Nick?"

"Whelan!" Nick felt himself shrivelling inside as Fuller stomped off down the corridor and to the stairs, panting and straining all the way. "Dammit!"

Jan shot him a sympathetic look. "He's old school, isn't he?"

Nick's face felt hot. "He's a good guy. He's just having a hard time with some… changes."

"Nothing wrong with old school. We need the senior beat cops as mentors." Vergeer cleared his throat awkwardly. "This is none of my business, but your partner needs to go for another fitness test. He sounds terrible."

"I know," Nick muttered. And he'd nagged Whelan about this any number of times, but the simple fact was that the guy would not go until forced to through a disciplinary, because as soon as he did a medical, the doc would probably confirm that he _did _have emphysema, and he'd have to medically retire. As hard as it was getting to cover Whelan's lack of fitness, Nick couldn't blame the poor guy from holding off on 'doc day' for as long as he could possibly get away with it.

Jan ran his fingers through thick black hair and tried to break the tension a little. "So, Nick, are you going after Whelan, or are you going to help me bring Benji in?"

Nick felt that he and Fuller could do with a short break. "What happens when he panics?"

"It really depends on how he's coping with his meds, but he'll typically put his costume on and then go psychotic."

"His…costume?"

"He has a few," Jan said casually. "None of them fit well. His heart is in the right place, but he's a loose cannon. He shouldn't be living alone, as I've told probation any number of times. He used to turn up at shootings dressed as a paramedic. Unfortunately it took jail time to stop him from doing that, and he's become more unstable since then, despite the range of meds he's on."

It seemed pretty sad, really. Nick grimaced as a 'live' howl of rage came through the door and there was a loud thump, followed by silence from the TV. He and Jan shared a hopeful look – fingers crossed he'd smashed it by accident – but as if to compensate for the merciful quiet, Benji started to throw things round his flat in frustration.

Jan yelled through the door. "Benji! That's enough! You've got ten seconds to open up, or―"

"HEY, YOU FREAK!" The yell from behind Nick knocked him off balance with surprise and he was thrust to the floor by a crazed, heavy-set guy wearing sweats from head to foot who'd burst between them to hammer on the door. "I WORK NIGHTS! YOU _KNOW_ I WORK FUCKIN' NIGHTS! I'M GONNA RIP YOUR TV OUT AND THROW IT DOWN THE STAIRS, THEN THROW YOUR ASS AFTER IT!"

A moment of quiet from within… and then the sound of smashing plates or glasses. Oh, crap. Nick recovered himself and pulled the wild-eyed neighbour away, getting between him and the door so Jan could get in and deal with Benji. "Calm yourself down and get back in your apartment please, Sir."

"CALM DOWN? I haven't slept in weeks! I've had it! I've fucking had it! How long's it going to take? You've been out there ten goddamn minutes shouting through the door!"

"_Now_, Sir!" Nick insisted and pushed him back towards 508. But the guy had clearly been pushed too far, because even as Jan strode over to help him, Nick took an almighty punch in the gut which dropped him onto hands and knees, and then a booted, clumsy foot smacked into the side of his face as the guy tried lunging back for the door again, seemingly determined to kick it down. Nick felt blood on his lip and his eyes crossed. He tried pulling his feet back under him but couldn't get his legs to work or his chest to re-fill. He was vaguely aware of Jan easily overcoming his underslept assailant and bundling him back into his apartment with dire comments about being let off officer assault charges, then heard him yell 'officer down!' at the top of his lungs.

Nick lifted his head to choke out words along the lines of 'hey, I'm just winded', but got stuck at the first H, and suddenly found himself being moved purposefully onto his side on the floor facing the door in gutshot position, his knees up and hands across his middle. What the…?

"NICK, SPEAK TO ME!" Jan yelled into his face, and again, Nick tried explaining he was fine, albeit bruised, when Jan bent down and spoke quietly. "Sorry about the indignity, but if you could moan and groan a bit? Thanks…"

Well, that was no problem. His cheekbone and ribs were still on fire. "Ugh," he managed, sucking air back in frantically. And for good measure, "Unnnnnh!"

"Excellent. Keep it up. A bit louder, if you can. BENJI, HELP!"

"Aghhh!" Nick added helpfully, reopening the cut in his lip, then Jan's grand plan bore fruit. Benji burst from his apartment, gun in one hand, first aid box in the other, dressed in a long black cape, a filthy white tank stretched over a pot belly, and obscenely small leather red shorts. At an almost-gentle toe-prod from Jan, he remembered to stop staring and carry on yelling. "Aggggh!"

"INCOMING! hey! Hey, leggo, Jan! What're you…. hey!"

"Sorry, Benji." Jan disarmed him smoothly, tossed the gun further down the corridor and got his hands behind his back in cuffs in seconds. "I'd rather that wasn't necessary, but you weren't really listening to reason back there, were you?"

"Y-you tricked me!"

Benji's eyes opened wide and disbelieving. Nick saw the misunderstood hero's head roll slightly on his neck, then his face ― under the hood ―took on the most miserable, woe begotten expression he'd ever seen as he was tugged slowly and gently down the corridor to the lift.

"No choice, Benji," Jan said lightly. "Where will you go if you get evicted? We talked about this. The TV whumping _has _to stop." His Miranda warning rumbled on as they disappeared round the corner. "I'm arresting you for creating a public nuisance…"

Nick got to his feet slowly and stumbled into Benji's flat. The TV was broken, as suspected, so he unplugged it, put a fire blanket from the kitchen over the smashed screen as a precaution, and grabbed a shirt and jeans from Benji's cupboard, sticking it in a plastic bag. The guy wouldn't last five minutes in lock-up dressed like that. He retrieved Benji's keys from the inside of the door and took them with him before locking up. As he trailed Jan and Benji downstairs, he had to run the gauntlet of a number of angry, muttering neighbours who made noisy comments about what the crackpot ws keeping in his apartment, apart from (probably) a load of weapons. Then Nick understood Jan's extreme reluctance to kick that door down. Benji's place would've been raided or trashed as soon as they left the building.

He probed his cheekbone gingerly as he trotted down the steps. He probably hadn't made the best impression. Couldn't even stop himself from getting beaten up by an angry neighbour.

And as for the mess of his face…. Whelan would probably get about four weeks of lecturing mileage out of the bruise on his cheek after only fifteen minutes spent with an SVU detective. Great.

: : : : :

Jan opted to get Benji in the lift rather than parade him down the stairs – plus, there was the danger he'd try to break free and seriously hurt himself if he fell with his hands tied behind his back. Benji woged in miserable protest as Jan led him out into the street and Jan found himself looking around in paranoia: it still seemed incredible to him that what he could see so clearly, no one else could. Well, no one non-wesen, that was. Except maybe a Grimm and they were, thank God, a very, very rare species.

That said, there was just a moment up on the fifth floor corridor that Jan thought Nick had seen Benji shift. He'd frowned, looked bemused, but then gone to close up his apartment. Jan smiled inwardly as he pushed Benji into the back seat of the squad car and buckled him up. Nick had played along with his plan with a pleasing degree of flexibility. He seemed a nice guy: willing to play along to the unconventional approach. He seemed ridiculously young, too. Probably only a couple of years out of the academy.

Benji, all raisin-headed and needle-toothed under his cape, thrashed away in the back seat, drooling unattractively.

"Would you stop that? I borrowed this squad car. If I have to explain your slime to anyone…"

"You're supposed to be a friend!"

Jan rolled his eyes. "Benji, we're _not_ friends. You are the federal pain the ass. I am the cop sent to fetch you all the time. It's not a restful relationship, is it? I just don't want to see you screwed more than necessary, that's all. Now shift back before the wind blows and you get stuck like that."

"They're gonna kill me in lock-up," Benji whined, shifted back to the shape of a middle-aged man with a four-day beard and hairy shoulders, and sat disconsolately in the back seat.

He cursed inwardly. Damn. He'd have to make sure they had a jumpsuit for Benji to change into before he spent any time cooling off in the cells, or he'd get himself severely harrassed. "We'll figure something out, alright?"

: : : : :

Nick emerged from the building and looked around, then strode over and got in the front seat of the car, a plastic bag in his hand. "Got his keys and some slightly more… uh… normal clothes."

Jan felt like punching the air. "Nick, you're brilliant."

Nick gave a timid grin. "Brownie points?"

"Brownie, donut and possibly cake points, too." Jan pulled out into traffic and they got to Gresham in five minutes. The duty sergeant sighed none too discreetly as he booked Benji in and led him off to an interrogation room to change before taking him down to lock up.

Nick fought with his phone a little: mobile signals seemed to come to Gresham to die. A few positions up in the air seemed to make no difference, then Jan cleared his throat and pointed at the phone on the desk.

"Would you like to borrow?

"Great, thanks. Need to call Whelan and get a lift back to Portland."

"I can drop you, if you like. You know, if asking him a favour would feel a little awkward, right now."

Nick was hugely relieved. "It would. It really would."

As much as he was desperate to get back in touch with Whelan and clear the air, Jan was relaxing to be around. And so… _polite. _Even with Benji. There was something slightly hypnotic about the accent, too. Quite apart from having a really, really deep voice, Jan spoke English as if he were taught by a really, really old English person and not through an American school or tutor. His English was from another era, when people still wrote each other letters and guys called their father 'Sir'.

They trotted down to the underground carpark. Nick kept moving towards a slightly battered red SUV towards the back of the park – it looked like the only vehicle that would fit Jan ― when he heard a 'bip' of a car door opening and he turned back to see Jan opening the driverside door of a beautifully sleek dark blue Alfa Spyder. He gaped, openly. Not on a detective's salary, surely? The guy must have some serious inheritance money, or something. Actually, that didn't seem unlikely at all. That, or wealthy parents. His clothes were expensive, his manners said 'prep school'…

"This is… yours?"

Jan stroked the bonnet lovingly. "She is very, very new. So you'll forgive me if I drive like a nonagenarian."

Nick chuckled and buckled up. "Anything that delays getting back to Portland and explaining 'this'," he indicated his face, "to Whelan, I'm all in favour of."

"Fine, we'll take the longer route, then." Jan pulled out smoothly onto the freeway by-road, which would add a smooth extra ten minutes to their journey. And would probably save on gas, too, Nick reckoned. It would seem like sacrilege to subject this beauty of a vehicle to a stop-start trip.

Jan spoke suddenly, once they were back on open road. "Whelan seems protective of you."

"He's the only guy I've worked with coming out of the academy. And uh… as you've probably worked out for yourself, he's a little pissed at me right now."

"What did you do?"

"I applied for detective." Said out loud, it didn't seem like such a crime. Nick was starting to get annoyed with himself for 'pussy footing' around Fuller quite so much. He'd made it clear that he wanted to be a detective when he started working with the guy. Maybe the day had just come around sooner than either of them thought.

"Ah, right."

"You been a detective long?"

Jan seemed to be counting backwards mentally. "Ah… detective rank, seven years. I've actually been a detective for about three years or so, now. For what it's worth, my partner didn't like it very much either when I moved out of uniform."

Seemed to be a common theme. "Any idea why?"

"Same kind of reasons as Whelan, I should think," Jan sighed. "It's tough on the older guys, seeing younger friends taking the plainclothes path. Some of them take it as a form of implicit criticism, as if young guys moving on says to them that they should have made the same choice many years ago, and that staying on the streets was some kind of lesser choice."

To Nick, this seemed like a big leap for Whelan to make. "I've never said anything like that!"

"I'm sure you haven't." Jan inclined his head sympathetically. "But you can't control how people are going to take things. He'll really miss you. He's reacting to that first, I think."

"I know." Nick felt a little miserable. "I got my test and interview dates last week and finally got up the nuts to tell him yesterday afternoon. I haven't slept very well lately."

"Is there a particular post you've applied for?"

"Special Victims."

"Ah. I can imagine that he's particularly unhappy about that."

"Just a tiny bit outraged, yeah. He thinks I'm joining the worst possible place. No offence."

Jan shrugged easily. "None taken."

"I've been trying to work out whether he's being realistic or overprotective, and I can't decide." Nick kind of sat and waited for Jan to roll out the red carpet, but it didn't happen. He looked like he was really carefully figuring out what to say and the fact that he had to think so hard about it didn't bode well for Jan joining his very tiny cheerleading squad, which currently consisted of two childhood friends who he texted a lot and saw once a year for pre-Christmas beers. He was hoping for more of a hand-up. Particularly as he was getting mentally attached to the idea of possibly working directly with Jan.

Jan took a deep breath as they took the home stretch to Portland. "Look, this is going to make me very unpopular, but I'm in total agreement with Whelan on this. Quite a few senior detectives ― myself included ― have appealed to the Area Commander to make SVU the same rookie-free zone that Homicide is. If you plunge straight into severe grim before you see medium grim, it can burn you out. We've lost a lot of good, young detectives from the force altogether."

"This is presuming I have no real life experience outside college and the academy," Nick said stiffly. "And if it's all so awful, why are _you_ in SVU?"

"When you make someone safe, it's the best job in the world. Don't get me wrong. But it wasn't my first post, alright? And besides, my size gives me a slight unfair advantage. I'm not saying it's all awful, but you need a thick skin. If you're coming into the job a little jaded and battle-scarred already, you might be ok."

Nick chuckled.

"What?"

"It wasn't an option on the application, you know. 'Do you already consider yourself to be jaded and battle-scarred?' Maybe they should add it."

"They will, at the interview. It'll all get very personal, trust me. When I applied, I had about twenty minutes of questions about what a trust-fund brat thought he could bring to the Police Force."

"What did you say?"

"Biceps."

Nick laughed properly this time, the tension broke a little, and then they were back at Portland. He swung the door open and climbed out carefully. His lower ribs still hurt a little. "Thanks for the lift, anyway. And the uh… unique experience."

Jan's dark green eyes met his through a thatch of messy black hair as he bent over the shotgun seat, "Good luck with Whelan. Oh, by the way… for SVU, ask yourself this honest question. If you think you can go home five nights out of seven and say 'hey, I didn't finish the job, but I did my best', then you will be ok. But if you're a clear-up obsessive, it's not for you. Decide what's important before you make any decisions, alright? That's all I'm saying."

Nick gave him a half-smile. "Alright." Then trotted up the stairs under those pretentious stone arches. Whelan, icebags and lectures awaited.

**X x X**

**Three weeks later…**

Jan peeled himself out of bed and snatched his mobile up from the dressing table, fumbling to solve the hideous equation that he had to work out to turn the alarm off. His bruise-addled, sleepless brain got to X = 24 eventually, just as the shrieking sound was on the verge of making him woge. Blissful silence reigned. It was a weird form of morning torture, but he knew that unless he set obstacles for himself, he would snooze and snooze and then have to start thinking of excuses for being late. He wiped sleep from his eyes and noted two new messages: one from John Wu, the other from his Captain. He decided that both could wait until he was clean, suited and booted.

He climbed into the shower, taking care not to sponge any bruises too hard. At least his face escaped last night's battering mostly intact. He knew Drangzoornen could rip, tear and bite their way out of a corner, but he'd forgotten about their evil punching. The two representatives from the shipping company he'd gone to see ― purely to make them aware of a human trafficking ring that had become apparent ― had taken one look at him, then each other, almost punched his lights out, then fled.

Jan groaned under the hot spray. He was stiff everywhere from chasing them down. On one hand, his Koninglowen nature was useful for steering a foot chase into a dead end and trapping his prey until backup arrived. On the other hand, there appeared to be a great deal of truth in the phrase 'the bigger they are, they harder they fall'. He couldn't help but feel that the Drangzorn suspects had applied excessive force in evading arrest. After several minutes of scuffle in his human form, he'd lost patience and woged completely to his Pride King – full lion - and finally subdued them.

He hated full woge. He preferred a mane, tooth and claw spurt for demonstration purposes only, without the lingering joint aches and decimated clothing. Another seam-ripped shirt and pair of slacks went in the bin as soon as he got home – as did his shoes, unable to take the strain of paws bursting through the leather. Human clothes weren't designed to take that kind of abuse. He remembered once asking his father how he was supposed to cope with full-woge occurrences on a practical basis. By way of wholly useless information, his father explained that 'Tante' Delphine, a Jijgerbaarin with whom he'd had an indiscreet affair, saved herself a lot of money during her post-natal depression by sticking to elasticated pants and skirts, soft jumpers, flipflops and sandals. Well, that might work for Delphine, but it wouldn't really add to his image in the office. Particularly not in winter.

Jan rinsed off carefully, towelled himself off and got dressed. One quart of milk and a pastrami sub later, he picked up his messages. John Wu had a flat and wanted a lift into PPD before Jan headed to Gresham. Fine. Jan texted back: '_be outside your apartment at 8.30. With spare coffee flask.'_ The calls from Captain Wilson he picked up a little more gingerly. She sounded congested and furious in equal measure.

_Jan, you __**still**__ have not selected your rookie from the pile of 'passes' I left on your desk. Stop evading this. I want your decision emailed by midday today. I know your views on SVU as a first post, but you just don't get any say in it. Luckily for you, I'm too sick to come in today to kick your butt. Unluckily for you, Lieutenant Renard is authorised to send pictures of you to every Asian store in a ten mile radius, warning them to arm themselves if you try to buy satay sauce._

There was a short pause for violent coughing mid-message, and Jan stared in disbelief at his phone. That was cold. He was addicted to satay sauce.

_Oh, and Sergeant Franco told me you got pulled around a lot last night with the container arrests. I hope you're ok. Send that email! Bye._

Jan huffed out an irritable breath, grabbed his jacket, and made for his car.

Wu was waiting by the curb when he pulled up, holding not just the spare coffee but also a very welcome Danish pastry. He buckled up and they were swinging into traffic in no time, but drove in unusual silence for a few moments. Jan glanced over.

"You alright?"

"Yeah."

"John..."

"Ok then, no. I feel lousy. I needed to force one of my guys into a physical. He's seriously out of shape. He'd told me that he'd been to the doctor and that he was fine, but I just happened to know that he's bullshitting."

"About the appointment, or that he's fine?" Jan changed lanes, still listening, wondering if he was talking about Whelan.

"Both. And he's a confrontational type. Mass awkwardness."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's the life of a sergeant. Apparently." Wu swigged on his coffee and took a pastry from the greasy bag on the dash, which rested on the little rubber mat that Jan kept to protect his leather from his colleagues' greasy snacks. He ate it over the plastic sheet that Jan also kept to protect his seats from his colleagues' greasy snacks. Wu mockingly tucked the corner of the sheet into his collar like a napkin. "Still feeling a little protective of your 'baby', Jan?"

"I'm going to be precious about my car until she's at least a year old. Be glad I'm not making you wear a bib."

Wu rolled his eyes and chuckled. "Those two last pastries are yours."

"Thank you."

"It's his partner I feel for," Wu suddenly went on. "He's been carrying them for months. I tried to get him to talk about it over a beer but he just gave me the big grey innocent eyes and clammed up."

"Younger guy loyalty?"

"Yeah, probably. Ah well. Immaterial now. The appointment was a few days ago and he asked for some 'thinking time'. He gets back this afternoon. Tell you what, I am so not looking forward to our meeting – particularly if he asks for more time out, which I can't give him. Fingers crossed I don't get my head knocked off."

Jan laughed as he pulled up outside Portland. John Wu was the resident Mr Mayaki. "I'd like to see him try."

"Presuming I survive the conversation, fancy joining me and some of the others for Chinese later? We've got an all-you-can-eat table booked at the Hung Fa Lo."

"You only go there because of the name! Thanks, but no." Jan grimaced at the thought of his cafe appointment with the 'Phoebes'. They provided vital information but they were more than a little grabby. He'd rather have Chinese with the guys. "I have a date with three ladies, alas."

Wu shook his head disbelievingly as he got out of the car. "Only _you_ could get 'alas' into that sentence. It just doesn't belong! Anyway, thanks for the ride. Beers soon, right?"

"Very soon." Jan waved and headed back to Gresham, wondering how Nick was after his doubtlessly awkward reunion with Whelan. Nick's file was one of the four left with him from which he should 'choose his rookie'. On paper, Nick was pretty much neck and neck with the other guys who'd aced their detective tests, only he was a little less academically burdened than the others. Not to say that he got lower grades, but all the other resumes indicated men who had chosen the 'detective path' since they were young, selecting Criminal Justice as their college major, busting their guts for top marks, and so on. Nick had respectable grades, had chosen psychology as his major and had clearly seen a bit of normal life, with a slew of jobs on the side while he was in college.

He got to his desk and set up. As comfortable as he was with Nick himself, he was uncomfortable about selecting him just because they'd met and he liked him. He'd been on the wrong side of that kind of decision making before: his friend Thijs had gone up against him for a Sergeant's post in Utrecht and managed to find out which bar his interviewer drank at. Then ingratiated himself. For all Jan's careful preparations, the job went to Thijs, who was interviewed in the style of a long-lost friend. The whole experience made him so angry that he still had fits of irritation whenever he thought about it. He was never, ever going to do that to someone else. He should go by what was on the paper. Or meet the other guys… which he couldn't do before midday.

"Vergeer," a deep voice said into his ear, "a word, please."

He'd barely gotten his key into his under-desk cabinet before having to give up his daily fight with the lock and follow Renard into Wilson's office. "Sir?"

"Three things. Firstly - your rookie files―"

"By midday, Sir, I know." Jan tried an internal sigh but the exasperation must have been all over his face, because Renard raised his brows.

"Problem, Vergeer?"

"No, I'll re-read them one last time and choose." He knew a lost battle when he saw one.

Renard opened a file, half summarising on the hoof, half reading out loud. "Second - new case, transferred from Portland. Adrianna Delancey was reported missing by her sister this morning and can't be contacted. Early information from PPD suggests an abuse situation with her husband, so this one's yours. Her husband works at Central library, but didn't show up for work this morning, either."

Jan could barely hear what he was saying. Renard was soft-spoken at the best of times, but when talking from a sheet of paper was completely incomprehensible. He slipped behind the Lieutenant and tried catching up on the brief by reading over his shoulder. He got the gist of it quickly enough. "I'll talk to his colleagues."

Renard jumped, but regained his composure super-fast, looking up at him archly. "Vergeer, stop looming."

"Sorry." Jan took the file and returned to his 'proper' place in front of the Captain's desk. "There was something else?"

"Yes. A gentleman in jeans, red leather shorts and a cape left this for you." He held out a note. "He wanted to wait for you to get in, but Franco told him – repeatedly – that he was free to go away and not come back."

Jan took the folded slip and shoved it in his back pocket. The neat handwriting was a good sign. Maybe whatever chemical storm had taken Benji over had eased off again, though he'd given up all hope of the man ever dressing normally. He took the rookie files with him to flit through one last time, hoping that none of the other candidates had a really outstanding reason to be picked above Nick. Mentally he'd already made his choice. He just had to _feel_ that it was the right one.

_To be continued very, very soon! (like, Mon or Tues)_


	2. First impressions: part 2

**And here's part two of the first story, which appears to have called itself 'first impressions', regardless of what I might have wanted to call it. Such is the unconsultative muse. Anyway – I hope you enjoy! Thanks very much to those who have followed and favourited, and extra bunny hugs to those who have reviewed!**

**I've included quick notes to 'guest' reviewers at the very end, as I can't respond in any other way!**

**X x X**

Jan got to the home of Adrianna Delancey's sister, Marjorie, just as she shuffled out of the front door in dressing gown and slippers, locked up, and went next door. Even from the other side of the road, she had the look of a woman who hadn't slept all night and was still jangling with nerves. Jan decided to give her ten minutes in case she was getting milk and comfort from a neighbour, shut his engine off, and unfolded Benji's letter.

* * *

Dear Detective V

I just wanted to say sorry about 'last time'. What can I say? Ibuprofen and anti-psychotics don't go.

I hope that baby-cop is ok (is it me, or do they all look about 12 years old these days?). Roger from room 508 punches really hard, and I should know.

As well as sorry, I wanted to say thanks. I don't know who you spoke to, but probation moved me to Aldous House, and there are a bunch of other people here who are getting to grips with their meds, too, so I'm in good company. There's even another 'spaced-out' accountant and he's fine except that he talks constantly about all the work that he doesn't have. This can get a little _boring_, but he's nice enough. Some of the folks at AH (address overleaf) helped me to move my stuff out of my apartment. Even some of the neighbours helped, which was nice. I wasn't ready to live alone. I'm not sure why I thought I could. Maybe I'm just someone who needs nice people round me (even if they're completely nuts.)

Anyway hopefully next time I see you, I won't be wearing my absolute worst cape (I was having a laundry crisis). Better still, maybe next time will be when I can actually be of some use in solving a crime. Who knows?

Yours,

Benjamin Orson

* * *

Jan folded the letter up, chuckling. Bless him. He stretched in his seat, trying to ease some of the kinks out of his back after a restless night trying to avoid bruising bits of him on the mattress. It was nice to get a better result for Benji.

Arranging the transfer to Aldous House hadn't been so hard: a certain lady over at the department of corrections was very partial to coffee being provided at the start of a conversation, and 'please' and 'thank you' (words she didn't often hear, poor woman) oiled the wheels nicely, too. As for Benji's neighbours... he'd spent a productive half hour on a Saturday evening charming the block supervisor into letting Benji foreshorten his contract on the apartment, and his neighbours were more than happy to drop all and any complaints they'd made about him to the super if it meant that Benji would finally leave. All it took was a friendly smile and a flash of badge at a few doors on Benji's corridor: those who were nervous that he'd notice the black marijuana clouds billowing from their back rooms even signed up for loading the van on moving day, which was decent of them.

The most important thing was that Benji didn't have an eviction record on his residency references. This would hurt his eventual resettlement just as disastrously as his criminal record. And as far as Jan was concerned, Lebensaugers suffered enough for being what they were, let alone being unable to cope with what they were.

He was about to lock up his car and retrieve Marjorie from her neighbour's place when his cell rang. Wilson. He steeled himself for incoming wrath. "Good morning, Helen."

"Don't you 'Helen' me! Where's my email?"

"It's 10am, ma'am."

"That's your answer, is it? Are you planning to smugly quote the time at me each time I ask you for a progress report on this?"

"Actually, I was just explaining why I hadn't sent it yet."

"You've had those files four days, Jan!"

"And I'm still giving it serious thought!" he protested. "Look, these guys are all under 28, two of them are still in uniform―"

His Captain sighed heavily. "I _know_ how you feel about rookies in SVU but you're not responsible for their mental health. They've chosen to join the team, and―"

"―And they have no idea of what they're letting themselves in for," Jan cut in, thinking of the Hundjagers hacking into the working girls when they needed local information. But Wilson was understandably undeterred.

"Look, the guys in your files are the very few that made it to selection point. Take it as read that _all_ of them have been approved by me for various reasons. I just need you to get off your ass and pick one you think you could… work… with!"

He winced as she broke off into a bout of furious coughing and spluttering, feeling a little bad. He knew there was a clock ticking: Wilson needed to call all the guys who hadn't been selected for SVU this time and they'd have to wait for the next detective vacancy to come up. It wasn't like a fast-stream process where you get shoved into a unit that didn't even have a vacancy just because you'd passed exams to operate at a particular level.

But it was ok for Wilson to yell at him: she knew all the applicants in person. He didn't. So he tried throwing her a bone of progress and asking her views at the same time. "I'm kind of leaning towards Burkhardt."

"'Kind of leaning'?"

"I don't know what you think, but he just seems focussed and balanced, to me."

"Good, so go with him."

This sounded a bit quick. Jan probed a little. "So….what do you think of him?"

"Nick Burkhardt? He's a sweetheart."

Jan frowned. What the hell was he going to do with a sweetheart? He needed someone gentle enough to coax scared people onto the witness stand, sure, but he also needed his partner to be able to see straight through crocodile tears and be able to run the nastiest of perps down. "I think I need someone a bit thicker-skinned."

"So go for Dean Skelton."

Jan winced. Skelton's photo alone suggested someone who'd been coaxed to take over the world from the age of three months. "He strikes me as someone who's a bit overly… driven."

"JAN, WILL YOU JUST CHOOSE!?"

No, he couldn't. He beamed politely down the phone at his boss. "All this shouting must be exhausting on a bad chest. Have you thought about lying _really_ quietly in bed?"

There was a long quiet at the other end of the line. "If you make me call you back, I will stagger from my grave just to key your car. Alright?"

Wilson hung up just as Marjorie was tottering back out from her neighbour's place, so he didn't have time to fear for his paintwork. He climbed out and trotted across the road, helping her up her front steps. She looked like she hadn't eaten in a couple of days.

Jan spent about an hour with Majorie Delancey, and although she made minimal eye-contact, this was through pure distraction and dread. He could smell the waves of stress coming off her, but it was pure worry, not anxiety at being caught in a lie or exposed as an accessory to some sort of crime. He sat opposite, his forearms on his knees, listening quietly as she stepped through the major problems in her sister's marriage.

Adrianna had been deaf since she was five, signed, and didn't wear aids. After being laid off a couple of years ago, she'd filled in time between new job interviews by volunteering as a befriender to young army vets. At scary whirlwind speed, she'd met and married Jason Delancey – deafened by an Iraqi mortar. She'd had her whole life to get to grips with not hearing: he still couldn't handle it. And he refused an implant. His anger and denial overlapped, turning into paranoia, and resentment started to express itself in violence. And he constantly suspected her of having an affair.

"It's _him _that's having the affair," Marjorie muttered eventually. "With Melinda Mott from the library. Though god knows what he sees in her. She's a little…slow."

Assured by her general anxiety and body language that Marjorie wasn't secretly in league with her brother-in-law, Jan took her card and headed over to Central Library, Marjorie's comments about the unequal affair rattling around in his brain. Jason was likely to be explosive and paranoid: a genuine affair with someone who was 'a little slow' seemed deeply unlikely. It seemed more probable that he was using his colleague, or grooming her as an accessory.

Jan strode into the 1920s building and saw Nick already talking to one of the librarians, which surprised him. He was happy to have more hands on deck with cases like these, but he thought Portland had already handed the case over to him at SVU. Curious to see what kept Nick on the case, he drew a little closer and tried hiding behind a book carousel that turned out to be only six feet tall. He feigned close interest in a Dean Koontz novel as he tuned into Nick's conversation with 'Melinda' on the other side of the crime section. She had long brown hair flattened either side of her face, big, bovine eyes, and her face barely moved or showed any emotions as she mumbled replies to Nick's questions, an eternity after he'd asked them.

Then Nick asked her something which hit a nerve, and she shifted slowly into her sloth-like Faultierschlurfer wesen form. Jan groaned inwardly, pitying Nick hugely.

The Faultierschlurfen had a singular form of self-defence when it came to interrogations in any setting: they slowed things to a pace that made lengthy questioning too distressing for their inquisitors to continue with. It was usually amazingly effective, but not so much with Nick. Jan grinned with approval while Nick remained patient and determined to get answers from her, however long it took, maintaining ruthless eye-contact. From the sheer length of her woge (or perhaps she didn't have enough calories to shift back again), it appeared that she was lying to the back teeth and none of it was getting past Nick at all. He decided to hang back and see what the young cop got from her.

: : : : :

Nick put a sympathetic hand on Melinda's shoulder and kept his touch light, transferring all his stress to his toes, which curled into furious rocks in his shoes. God, this woman was _annoying!_ She was all moist-eyed and lip-trembly, albeit in slow motion, and her distress at her colleague's disappearance from work now seemed about as genuine as a Ming Vase bought in Walmart.

He'd spoken to her briefly yesterday with all the other librarians and as a collective, none of them had seen Jason Delancey for a couple of days. But Melinda's response was far more emotional. This didn't necessarily mean that she was guilty of anything more than maybe having a crush on Jason and dreading his involvement in his wife's disappearance, so Nick hadn't pushed too hard.

Today, though, all he'd called in to the library to do was ask for a copy of Jason's latest photo pass for ID (Delancey's photophobia meant no quality pictures around his apartment) and he was ready to ask the first person he saw on the desk. The fact that Melinda froze the second she saw him made him feel that she should be the one to ask. And when she'd looked extra miserable about helping him, he quietly commented that she seemed close to Jason and asked if he'd tried contacting her for any kind of help. The thought of answering this seemed to frighten her into a trance that he would've called catatonic if it hadn't been for her left-eyed twitch.

"Look," he prompted gently, after his touch elicited no response, "I get that talking with your colleagues around makes it hard for you to be straightforward with me. Where can we go that's private?"

While feeling determined on a result, he knew he should leave. He shouldn't have this one-to-one conversation with her. He should simply pass his observations to SVU, _now_, and let them get on with it. But he'd come into this case through a completely different route and wanted to see it through. He fought with himself a little. While she considered the really hard question about whether or not there was anywhere quiet to talk in the massive building, he _could_ still tell her that he'd run out of time and would send one of Jan's team to talk to her instead. And then he caught Jan's eye from behind the thriller section.

Nick gave the briefest, guilty lurch at being caught in the act of case trespass. He'd done that once before by accident and the guy he'd reported to in narcotics had ripped him a new one for threatening the case. Ok – so, time to hand it all over.

"Go on and get the pass printed, please," Nick said miserably. "My colleague will join you in a moment."

As Melinda crept away like a two-toed sloth (with a broken toe), Nick joined Jan by the carousel. Jan nodded his head further down towards ancient history and stood at the end, his eyebrows raised expectantly. Slightly unnerved, Nick opened the conversation by blithering.

"Look, I know this has been technically passed over to you guys and everything―"

"It's fine, Nick." Jan dipped his voice. "I thought it best that we moved away. She's keeping herself in eavesdropping range. So, tell me what you've got."

Relief billowed through Nick. Good – he hadn't totally screwed up, then. "I think _she _thinks that she's involved with Jason Delancey, but that he's using her for something."

"Good. Then we're aiming in the same direction. What's your intel?"

"Uh… it's more of … well…" Nick pinkened. Yeah, 'it's an instinct' would work really well here. "It's a kind of… strong feeling. A combination of profiling and body language."

"Go on."

"Ok, well… on Melinda's part, she feels strongly about Jason. Whether that's because she's frightened of him or she wants the pants off of him, I'm not quite sure, but she reacts to his name extremely. And she lies when I ask if he's been in touch. On Jason's part, he's nearly profoundly deaf, right? He tries to lipread, but according to the concierge at the Delancey's apartment, he's furiously impatient, even about simple stuff like getting spare locker keys. Melinda barely moves her lips when she speaks. He cannot possibly be having a meaningful relationship with her."

He paused, a little breathless from gushing it all out so quickly, and Jan seemed to be thinking this through, his hands on his hips.

"One query. How did you get so much background? Her sister only reported her missing this morning."

"I didn't know about the sister. One of her online friends was meant to meet her a couple of days ago. They have signing conversations on skype, and at the end of one them, Adrianna was seen being pushed off the seat pretty roughly. When she didn't turn up to their meeting, she was concerned and bought a recording of the conversation into the precinct. So I went round to speak to Jason but he's made himself scarce."

Jan nodded his head in Melinda's direction. "Go catch her up, then."

Nick stared. "Really?"

"I'll have to sit in, of course, it's my case. But you can get started. I'll get us some emergency espressos from the machine and join you."

They both glanced over to see that Melinda had covered about three metres' distance towards the staffroom during the whole conversation. Nick rolled his eyes in frustration as he went after her, hoping that her slowness wouldn't actually do something sinister to the fabric of time and suck him into a black hole. The woman was beyond belief.

"I'm sorry," she droned, as he dropped in alongside her. "I had a little accident. I'm favouring my right foot."

Nick felt that she was favouring not moving at all but flashed his most charming smile, swept her off her feet and marched smartly towards the staffroom with only "Allow me!" for her to argue with. There were women he'd prefer to expend this gesture on, but really…life was too short.

He set her down on one of the squashy seats, got her tissues and a glass of water and sat opposite, his forearms on his knees, making keen eye contact. He kept his voice gentle but firm. "I think you know where Jason Delaney is."

She thought about this for a really long time, making him want to scream and run through the window. He'd only encountered boredom on this scale once before.

He'd been invited as a token 'ornamental cop' to a Landmark Awards dinner which gave prizes to government and private organisations for their community contributions. Captain DeMarcos had accepted PPD's prize with a criminally long and astonishingly boring speech that had two guys leaving the room to sob in the corridor, and a couple of others almost losing consciousness into their pudding. Even Lt Renard had almost betrayed his trademark composure by nearly resting his elbow in his Tiramisu and was barely saved from disgrace by Wu's swift sideways nudge. As for himself, Nick had genuinely felt like crying at the twelve minute mark.

Getting information from this woman was like the Landmark dinner all over again.

"We were going to run away together," she said finally.

Imagining her running anywhere nearly jerked an unprofessional smirk to his lips. He struggled hard with it, but the smirk fought dirty. He got it under control and had just raised his eyebrows to indicate that she should continue her explanation _now, _not next year, when he saw her flick a fervent gaze out of the window and pull it back guiltily. She did this at a speed that was completely out of sync with the rest of her movements.

He followed her line of sight and saw nothing but a bench and a beech tree. But now he definitely smelt a liaison.

He focused the conversation ruthlessly.

"Melinda, you have feelings for each other. I understand that. But his wife has gone missing and at this point, we just need to talk to him. Where _is he_, Melinda?"

She twitched again, then leant over and pulled a tissue from the box, dabbing her eyes with it. He saw her glance out of the window again while bending over. Now he smelt a distraction technique.

"What is it?" he asked.

She dabbed some more, and he clenched his fingers round the edge of his seat.

"Focus, please, this is important."

"I think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown."

He waited for it… three.. two… one…. and glanced sideways before she could, this time seeing Jason Delancey leaning out from behind the tree, then freezing at the sight of his loved one (or not) talking to a uniform cop. As Delancey bolted, so did Nick, leaping out of the staffroom and across the library. Jan slammed the espressos down on the counter and pounded out with him.

For a guy with bad balance, Delancey moved fast. Keeping chase, Nick dived left down an alley slope after him and pursued him into a multi-storey car park. The gap was slightly closed when Delancey tried to leap over the ticket barrier but didn't quite clear it and went sprawling, but desperation gave him wings and he scrambled up and kept going until suddenly he disappeared from view.

Nick stood in the corner of the stairwell for a moment, trying to see if legs appeared between the cars, then Jan caught up with a hurdle leap over the ticket barrier and kept on running in a very decided direction.

"How do you know…?"

"Footfalls!" Jan called back over his shoulder, and they tracked them up to the fifth level before they tailed away. Jan led them briskly back to the ground level. "Ok, he may be hiding, but I think he's got his car here. Let's get mine."

Nick glowed inwardly as he clambered back into the Spyder. He couldn't wait to see this thing move properly. Jan reversed it out smoothly and eased it to the edge of the down ramp, and sure enough, a white fiat screamed round the corner a moment later, Delaney at the wheel.

Jan took up chase. "Nick – glove box. Stick the light on the roof, please, then alert traffic control. Just so you know, it's been six years since my chase training."

"I got it."

They ripped after the Fiat across three sets of traffic lights and into a by-road that led towards Victoria Park where Delancey sped up to 80mph and Nick found himself screwing his eyes shut and clutching the sides of the shotgun seat, almost crapping himself. He fought to keep his voice steady through the screech of wheels and beeps from other cars as Delancey ripped down the middle of the two-lane road, weaving over to the other side and back, leaving chaos behind him. It took a few goes to report the plates to despatch, and he got the information back that it was Melinda Mott's car. They were temporarily blocked by a 12-wheel truck turning left against traffic, making them both swear and blast in frustration, and when the vehicle finally moved out of shot, the Fiat was gone.

Suddenly Jan cursed, took his foot off the accelerator, and opened his window. "We're going to have to rely on sound and traffic control to guide us in, now. If that car crashes, the forensics will disappear."

So this slowed Jan down to a crawling 60mph, and he drove leaning slightly to the right, keeping his ears open – or so it looked.

Nick stared. "What are you…?"

"I'm following the sound of horns."

"Ok. You have weirdly good ears, then."

Nick let him focus on his driving but could barely, at the very edge of his hearing, pick up angry blasts. Jan drove fast but not dangerously, took a sharp right at the Victoria Park slipway and then they found the Fiat ― smashed into one of the side posts. The front and side windscreens were gone, and there was blood on the steering wheel and the seat. No Delancey. No keys, either.

Jan parked up a safe distance from the vehicle. While he called 911 for back-up and ambulance, Nick crept into the park, his service piece out, following the tiniest trickle of blood in the grass. Jason didn't get far. About two hundred yards into the oak copse, he'd collapsed face first into the grass. Nick put his gun away and cautiously felt for pulse and breathing, not wanting to move him in case he'd also damaged his spine. All the vitals were present, but Delancey had a significant head wound. Reasonably convinced that the guy wasn't about to evade arrest, Nick rejoined Jan outside the gates.

He'd sat himself down, leaning against the far gatepost from the Fiat, his coat draped around a wide-eyed, tearful girl whose eyes were still protesting at the light of day. She was huddled against his front, leaning against him and swamped in his jacket, vibrating with shock. A small bottle of mineral water jangled in her left hand but she was too bewildered to drink from it.

"She was in the trunk," Jan said quietly, looking furious. He kept a light touch on Adrianna's shoulders, rubbing gently. "Jason smacked her round the head and thought he'd killed her. She doesn't know how long she's been in there. I've called another ambulance. She's completely dehydrated on top of everything else."

The first wave of paramedics arrived, and it was with a sour feeling in his gut that Nick waved them into the park towards the criminal half of the Delancey couple. Just… sometimes… he hated the rule that the worst injured people got treated first. He hunkered down by Adrianna and caught her attention with a light touch on her hand. He only knew about three things in American Sign Language: yes, no and fingerspelling. So he went for careful enunciation and well-meaning pantomime.

"Can I call someone for you?"

Adrianna nodded and spelt out the name of her sister at such speed that Nick's eyes watered. He was supremely grateful when Jan peeled his wallet out of his back pocket and told him to look in the third compartment while she curled into him, whimpering quietly to herself. He couldn't have picked up the name of the sister if she'd repeated it a dozen times.

By the time Nick was done with his call to Marjorie, who sobbed relief into his eardrum, both Delanceys had been taken away, the car removed and Jan had made himself comfortable at the bottom of a huge oak tree close to where Jason D had collapsed. Nick strode over and realised that Jan actually looked really _un_comfortable. He had the face of a man sitting on a pile of sharpened twigs.

"You ok?"

"I will be." The giant winced as he moved his torso back and forth, as if trying to ease cramping. "I was on the underside of a fight with two suspects last night, and my muscles didn't appreciate the exertion of the sprint into the carpark. A short working day, two beers and an early night will solve it."

"Oh. Good."

Nick blinked. He'd run like that after getting beat up? Who would put themselves through that? Maybe it was an SVU work ethic... thing. All the more reason to hang fire on his application. He was still in two minds whether or not to withdraw it, whatever the results of his interview. He'd passed his board, after all, so he was now qualified to go for whatever detective vacancy came up, but Jan's lightly-given words of warning had stuck with him and now he wasn't sure he was ready for SVU. Because he was a clean-up obsessive, he knew that.

And this was why he'd always wanted to be a detective, because he needed to see how things turned out. Even when doing his beat job the best he could, it still felt like he was only doing half the job when he handed things over to a team of guys who just wanted the concrete information from him, and when it came to the people-reading, they'd just have to do the same thinking all over again. And the victims' families would just have to keep repeating the same information over and over again. So he couldn't stay a beat cop. He loved it in so many ways, but it just wasn't stretching him. But on the other hand... SVU ... yeah, it may be a little early for that. Maybe he could study up on finance and keep himself posted on white collar roles.

"Do you want a lift back to Portland?" Jan asked eventually. "The morning's activities have taken you off your normal beat by a few miles."

"That'd be great. Thanks."

"I notice that you're partnerless today," Jan added, and Nick's sideways glance at his face confirmed the feel he got from his tone that he was trying to feel out the situation without being nosy. He appreciated the attempt at tact, particularly given the way Whelan had spoken to him last time they'd met. But at least he had good news to report on that score.

"Yeah, he's on leave. But it's all good. He pretty much got forced into a renewed physical examination and they told him that he needed to lose 35lb and get an inhaler for his asthma." Nick grinned, remembering Whelan's howl of relief and involuntary crushing hug as he'd stumbled out of the doc's follow-up appointment: no cancer, emphysema, ghastly diseases, nothing. Just lifestyle shit that he needed to sort out if he wanted to stay in work ― and he did. "And I know he's going to make the changes because he called me at ten at night just to announce that he was voluntarily making himself a salad."

"Seriously? Salad preparation without gunpoint encouragement?"

Nick chuckled. "As strange as it sounds, yeah. He seemed to be for real."

"Good. So you're able to be happy for him. What about him for you? Any progress on that front? Because I have to be frank - I know you passed your detective board examinations. Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"Alright, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Nick, the best lie detectors do not make the best bullshitters. Don't ask me why that's the case, just simply accept that it is."

Nick grinned reluctantly. This sounded like the voice of experience. "Ok, so you gave me pause. About SVU, that is. I had a good long talk about things with Whelan the night he had his test results back, and we sorted a few things out, which was great, like the fact that he could handle that I was moving on."

"But?"

"Well from Whelan, at least – 'but' nothing. He's a new man with a new lease of life and… for crying out loud, he was the one that talked me out of withdrawing my SVU application."

Jan looked appalled. "You were going to withdraw?"

"You talked about clean-up obsessives and how we were likely to be unable to cope. I'm one of those guys, Jan. I'm not sure I _can_ leave work five nights in seven knowing that it's not all cleared off the books."

Nick glanced sideways as Jan clapped a hand to his eyes then dragged it down his face. "You sure you're ok?"

"Nick, when I gave you that advice I was just trying to prevent you from leaping into a job where you thought it might be glorified beat work. I wasn't trying to get you to doubt yourself as a detective because, as I've seen, you're very, very able."

Nick smiled a little. "You haven't seen me working as a detective!"

"It didn't take you long to realise that the librarian was spinning a yarn and, believe me, she was ready to keep you standing for hours while she reeled out a slo-mo sob story." The big guy sighed. "Look, you'll be getting your results this afternoon. But for what it's worth, you appear to have the kind of instincts that will let you go home four nights in seven, knowing you did your job, which is the important thing. Besides, if you back out now, I'll have to get really cross with myself― OW!"

Nick bit his lip as Jan got showered with acorns from above and looked up furiously at an unrepentant squirrel on a lower branch.

"Hey! I said _I'd get cross with myself! _ I don't need assistance, is that clear?"

"Ok, you're making me feel better now," Nick snickered, rising to his feet. "Thanks. I mean it."

"I'm delighted that my acorn shower has flipped your mood," Jan observed and stood slowly, keeping a sharp eye on the squirrel as it darted vertically down the trunk and eyed him cheekily. "You might want to grab your keys before we head for the car, by the way."

Nick felt his pockets, and his housekeys in his left one. "What keys?"

Jan nodded over to a gleaming ring a few feet away on the grass, just catching the sun. "Those."

Nick approached carefully and recognised the Fiat sign on the upper side of the keys. There was a sticky patch on the keys that was most likely Delancey's blood. Easy evidence of him using Melinda Mott's car as an accessory.

"Hang on, I'll just grab them." He strode over to claim them and was slightly astonished to find himself outpaced by a squirrel, which sat right next to them, then snapped its teeth around the ring. Surely it wasn't going to…."Hey, no... no no no..."

Nick flung himself forward and felt fur between his fingers but they closed round a gap where the squirrel had been. No more keys. He looked back at Jan in complete disbelief. "It stole the fucking evidence!"

Jan was staring hard off into the distance.

"Did you hear what I―"

"I was keeping an eye on the squirrel. They're cheeky customers." Jan pointed up to the first branch of the oak. The squirrel had disappeared, clearly discarding the keys as inedible. They glinted in a fork of the branch, now in custody of a cat, which inspected them at close range, nudging them.

Nick scratched the back of his head, contemplating this. "D'you think we can get the cat to throw them down?"

Jan gave him a long, considering and kind-hearted look which made him feel like a _complete_ dumb-ass. "It's a cat, Nick. I think... that may be a little too much to hope for."

"Yeah." He pinkened. Ok, maybe not 'throw' them down. Push them off, or something."

"Hmmm."

They still needed to get the keys back, ideally before all the prints were compromised by licking, or whatever. The branch was only ten, maybe eleven feet off the ground. The trunk looked pretty impassable - no foot or handholds whatsoever.

Nick shrugged. "I might head over to warden's maintenance hut. See if he's got a ladder or something."

"Or I could give you a boost."

Nick glanced over at Jan doubtfully. Yeah, he was big, but... "How do you see that working?"

"How tall are you?"

"Five-eleven."

Jan squinted slightly, measuring the distance from ground to branch with a few up and down nods. "Fine, so with arms outstretched, you're seven feet. So… if you balance yourself against the trunk and I give you a three or four-foot lift, you can probably grab it ok."

That sounded manageable. "And, coming down?"

"I'll catch you."

Jan seemed so supremely confident that Nick just shrugged and they walked over to the tree trunk. He just hoped that the damn cat wouldn't knock the keys off prematurely into the rhododendrons beneath. It would take a very, very long time to find them if that happened.

Jan stooped and put his palms out. Nick looked at the hands dubiously. "Shouldn't you link your fingers or something?"

"Why? You have two feet. Conveniently, I have two hands."

"O-kay…" Nick leant against the trunk, stuck his left foot on Jan's hand, felt himself lifted like he weighed like a banana, then hovered his right onto Jan's other palm, feeling his way nervously backwards up the tree, his fingers feeling the trunk behind. After a few moments of hand readjustment, Nick could just about reach over to the branch above, but not to get a proper grip. It was too broad for his palm. He needed to be a little bit away from the branch so that as soon as Jan lifted in earnest, he could jump and get his arms round it instead. "Jan, could you walk me sideways a little? So I'm facing the branch? Then when you push up I can just leap and grab."

"Right."

Nick felt perspiration rising and his outstretched arms tremble as he balanced on Jan's palms and they moved slowly towards the keys. He kept his balance by 'walking' his hands across the thick beam. He looked down and felt a little giddy. Not so much the height, more the instability, as he was still a good foot or two back from the branch. He was glad for the dark uniform, for once. It didn't really give away sweat stains, if they were going to appear. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and swallowed thickly. "Ok, boost!"

: : : : :

Trying to measure his strength for the boost up, Jan dipped his forearms just slightly, and at Nick's split-second sound of panic, realised he'd gone a little too far down and jerked his arms back up before Nick lost contact with the branch and dropped face-forward beneath it. But he accidentally let go of Nick's feet at the top of the correction and his heart stopped in his chest as Nick sailed over the branch (astonishing both the cat and the squirrel), roared "Jaaa-AAAAN!" and plummeted into the rhododendrons with a thump.

Way to put the guy off working with him.

There was a long, horrible moment of silence and Jan felt his feet rooted to the spot. Then he heard a soft groan, which unfroze him. He lunged over and ripped the branches back, snapping and flinging them behind him until eventually unearthing Nick towards the bottom of the bush, moving slowly and uncertainly.

He put a cautious hand on Nick's shoulder. "Can you hear me?"

"Nnf."

"Oh, thank… _fuck _for that. DON'T MOVE. That was quite a fall. Let me just..."

Jan patted him down as gently as possible and was relieved beyond measure to hear the odd grunt of indignation, but no gasps or shouts that indicated serious breaks. Then Nick tried speech.

"J-Jan? Need to move."

"Ok, let's move _slowly_. Can you feel your back and your toes?"

Nick lifted his head and pulled a traumatised face. "C'n feel a… root near my groin!"

"Let's move quickly, then." Jan looped arms under Nick's chest and hips and lifted him back out of the bush in a boneless, irritable heap, setting him carefully down on his side in case he felt queasy. It was a miracle he wasn't more badly hurt. And now, after all those stupid would-he/wouldn't-he take-on-Nick deliberations, the tables had turned. Nick wanted SVU, _maybe _― not necessarily him ― and all he'd brought Nick was pain, indignity, crossed eyes, and a nearly-rooted groin.

His maybe-rookie curled into a ball and squeezed his eyes shut, a little on the pale side.

"Stay there a few minutes, ok Nick?"

"Unnnf."

Jan stood and stalked over to the tree, giving the cat a filthy look. _That wasn't helpful_. He pointed at the ground. _Push those down. Now._

The cat straightened on its haunches and peered down at him.

He went for verbal, first. "TISSSSK!"

The domestic, striped little bastard had the temerity to smirk at him. Fine. So he'd communicate in international feline stare.

_Don't think I won't come up there after you_.

Taking a cautious glance over at Nick, who was still trying to get himself together on the grass, Jan crept over to the trunk. There were no grapple holds at all and he was probably too heavy, but at a push ―with claws extended ― those keys _were_ coming down. He raised his brows at the cat.

_Last chance_.

The mutt stretched and wiped behind its left ear as the keys glinted in the cold winter sun on the fork of the branch. Nick was still curled up and groaning. Feeling reasonably safe to exercise his feelings, Jan extended incisors and shifted quietly halfway to Koninglowen. His hands grew the claws but stopped short of broadening to paws. His mane grew out, though, and his face took on full leonine proportions. To start with, the weight of hair hanging over his face maintained an air of mystery, but the moment he snapped his face up and dug claws into the trunk of the oak, the cat screeched, smacked the keys off onto the grass with a paw and followed the squirrel about twenty feet up into the tree.

Jan shifted back and pulled a baggie from his pocket, sealing the keys. "That's more like it. Thank you."

"Jan?"

"Yes, Nick?"

"The… keys…"

Jan waved the keys in the bag. "Success. Just stay there a moment longer, I'll get something cold for your head. You've quite a lump by your temple."

He ran back to his car and bipped the trunk open, snatching a can of coke out of his minifridge and a window cloth to wrap it in. The last thing he needed now was a concussed, smart, intuitive cop deciding that lunatic tree-flingers were not for him. He ran back to Nick and gripped the back of his neck lightly, pressing the makeshift compress up against his temple.

"Owowowowwow."

"It'll smart a little at first, I'm sorry."

"You w're… sposed to catch me."

"I'm _so_ sorry, Nick." He was saved from digging himself into a hole by the angry blaring of his cell advertising that his Captain was about to key his car and probably castrate him, as well. "Ma'am?"

"IT'S HALF PAST TWELVE!"

Wilson sounded about 70% more acerbic than usual, so he cut to the chase. "Ok, so I've been a little caught up in the Delancey case, but I've made a decision, and―"

"You're having Burkhardt," she snapped. "It's your prerogative to pick a case over who you're going to be working with for the next x years, but _my_ prerogative to make sure the right people are on my team. If you can't accept the very rare opportunity of being allowed to select your own partner, then you'll have who's allocated to you. . Burkhardt it is. He's intuitive, athletic and baby-faced. Perps will underestimate him constantly."

Jan grinned inwardly, but felt slightly anxious about this enforced partnership, considering he'd just flung his new partner into a tree and may have fallen directly off Nick's Christmas card list. "That's mostly excellent news."

"Only mostly?"

"Burkhardt's definitely who I was leaning towards, but… given recent events, I'm not sure that he'll be regarding me particularly warmly."

Nick lifted his head off the grass, all confused. "Burkhardt… what?"

"Tell you in a moment, Nick. Just stay still, please."

Wilson sounded wary and weary in equal measure. "Why would he not regard you particularly warmly right now?"

"Need-ta sit up."

"No you _don't_! You need to stay still!" Jan suppressed Nick with a hand on his chest, but this didn't stop the kid's earnest upright wriggling any more than it stopped Wilson's interrogation in his ear. Feeling more than a little harassed, he put his Captain on hold. "Helen, would you excuse me?"

"No, I won't!"

"Nick, STAY STILL. I weigh about 240lb. You do not want me to sit on you! Sorry, ma'am. You were saying?"

"_Why_ would your brand new partner not feel warmly towards you?"

Jan let out a miserable breath. There was no point in trying to cover this. "I threw him into a tree, and I think he may have a mild concussion."

"'I'm fine. Iz jus' impact shock."

"You threw him into a tree. Right. What… head first?"

"Upwards," Jan assured, "Not into the trunk." Still, he felt like he wasn't doing himself any favours.

"Right. _Why_?"

Jan let his breath out slowly. "We were thwarted by a recalcitrant squirrel. It took the evidence up a tree. Nick attempted to follow it up the tree with negligible results, but we've since recovered it."

"You were thwarted by a...?" She sighed heavily. "Never mind. Please tell Burkhardt the bad news that he's stuck with you. I'm hanging up and relieving the other candidates."

As Wilson clicked off, Jan found himself helping Nick to his feet, since he was so determined to stand anyway. "How do you feel?"

"Like an… air-to-land missile…"

"I didn't mean to elevate you _quite_ so quickly."

"_Elevate_?" Nick pitched forward into his chest, giggling wildly. Jan pressed him lightly back upright by his shoulders. "El― elevation suggests controlled, calm movement. You... tossed me!"

Jan breathed out hard and counted to five. "You were a little lighter than I was expecting."

"Tossed me like a two-ounce bullet," Nick muttered, swaying.

"Let's get you to the car." Jan stooped way down and hooked Nick's arm over his shoulders, looping his arm round his back.

"You were talking 'bout me on the phone," Nick observed, missing nothing.

"Yes, about partner placements. Congratulations, Detective Burkhardt, you're in SVU. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm your partner."

"Rilly?" Nick beamed with genuine, goofy delight. "Me? New job? Detective?"

"Yes, really. Just keep walking to the car, Nick. One foot in front of the other..."

"Hey, thass great! Uh uh... what about the evidence? Jan... the keys! I've got to..."

"Keys are bagged, tagged, and I'll book them in. While you're getting checked over. Hopefully you'll still want to work with me once the dizziness has passed."

Nick hooked his arm round the back of his neck slightly drunkenly. "Eh, it'll be great. You can teach me how to chat to cats."

Oh dear. Jan forced a humouring chuckle as he buckled Nick into the shotgun seat of his Spyder. He'd hoped that one had gone unseen. "Chat to cats?"

"I saw you face down that cat. You told it what was what. It _gave_ you the keys."

"I didn't chat to the cat, Nick. I told it off. _Anyone_ can tell a cat off, it's just pure luck as to whether it listens to you or not."

Nick hummed dopily. "Cat was definitely, definitely listening to you."

Jan chuckled to himself as he took the car out of neutral and pointed it towards Portland General. He had the feeling that even after a headache, Nick would still want to sign up, and he was delighted.

"How'dya tell a cat to chuck you some keys? That's talent."

"Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"Be quiet."

The rookie-detective looped his fingers behind his head, still grinning, and blatantly in need of an x-ray. "Okie… 'partner.'"

**X x X**

**I hope you guys enjoyed the story of their team-up! Coming reasonably soon, 'Jan went Clang'. Some of you who have read United Federation may remember what that story is likely to involve….**

**Wonderful guest of 4****th**** April… it's going to be a delicate line to tread, but that's why I'm doing it.…for fun **** I will try to handle Nick as proto Grimm with discretion and care. There may be some inconsistency errors (I hope not), but I will do my best. Please feel free to PM with ideas.**

**Vel – yes, I'll be returning to the later stages of the UFRS arc in time: next planned story is 'the Blutbau Cometh', then 'special constabulary'. I'm really flattered that you want me to keep going with the arc - thank you!**

**Wolfrunner – you are very, very kind! I'm glad you're really enjoying. These little stories will probably go as far as when Jan leaves to go back to Holland and Interpol for his fast-stream secondment after working with Nick (then the story goes into UFRS, I guess, in terms of Jan's return to the scene). I plan to return to 'present time' to continue after waifs and strays. **


	3. Size isn't everything (part 1)

**And here's story #2, folks! Jan and Nick's first official case together, with a bit of Renard and Wu flung in too… just because I love them so much….**

**I hope you like baby-detective Nick… he's a sweet soul, really ;) Part 2 coming fairly soon, but Jan's half of the case doesn't get **_**any **_**smoother!**

**X x X**

Helen strode across her empty squad room and set up in her office before the other Captains showed up for the Tuesday morning bi-lateral. She hated hosting the bi-laterals. They always started with Tony DeMarcos' observations that her squad room looked more like a newspaper bullpen than a precinct, and usually finished up with some comment to remind her in not so many words that she was the token female on the county Senior Management team. She was starting to indulge daydreams where DeMarcos crossed the road while yakking into his cell, as he always did, right in the path of Jan's motorbike. In the face of the pancaked Captain's final angry glare, Jan would simply pull his helmet off and say mournfully, 'apologies, Sir. Your sudden appearance right in the middle of the road was a little unexpected.'

Aside from her fantasies about DeMarcos' flattened demise, the only thing that made the meetings bearable right now was the fact that Lieutenant Renard was covering for West Side's one-word Wilkes. Sean's attentive quiet and occasional, relevant interjections helped her keep her composure in place and temper in check.

And boy was her temper running away from her easily these days. Her PC hard drive groaned sullenly as it booted up, voicing her feelings precisely. While it considered the daily question as to whether or not it was going to give her any software, she downed her coffee and unwrapped her sub. The kid behind the counter at Subway had suffered the short end of her temper this morning, but since the poster advertised the 'sub of the day' as being six inches long, untoasted, with no cheese, she saw no reason why she had to fight off offers for them to toast a foot-long gastric monstrosity laden with cheese. The compassionate part of her knew that the kid's livelihood probably depended on an upsell, but her compassion had a funny way of going AWOL every Tuesday morning. Still, her PC chose to grace her with email, which slightly lifted her mood, and a few calories later, she felt a little more human. Her day improved further when Lieutenant Renard rapped lightly on her door.

She waved him in and pointed vaguely at one of her spare armchairs while she struggled to swallow her mouthful delicately. It was a lost cause but Sean was polite enough to put his case down and make himself comfortable in a seat while she did so. He was gazing concertedly out of her office window into the open plan squad room when suddenly he grinned, taking her completely by surprise.

"Who's your rookie?"

"I'm sorry?" She thought she'd been alone in the office and stood to peer out her window, feeling slightly guilty. Nick had his back to them, setting up enthusiastically. He filled his slidy draw with pens, polished his name plate, and tried to get his PC to link up to the unit printer ― all pretty much at the same time. And he looked so smart. Shirt, tie, hair super-neat. Like a big kid on work experience. She chuckled.

"And what marks him out _so_ clearly as a rookie?"

"He's ecstatic about having a desk. That's a big clue, Ma'am."

"Sean, I think you can get away with calling me 'Helen'. Besides, most guys do suffer unwarranted desk excitement when they come out of uniform. It doesn't last, sadly."

"His face is familiar," Sean went on.

Helen looked at him curiously. She normally had to pull conversation from him with pliers.

"I nodded to him on the way in, but…"

"Nick Burkhardt," she said, and was sure she saw Sean start. "That's not bad news, is it? Please tell me that's not bad news, because recruiting for that post was just ridiculously diffi―"

"No. No… I've got him fixed, now. I'm just used to seeing him in uniform. Actually, he's pretty helpful. Drops files off after shift, that kind of thing."

"He uses initiative," she agreed, thinking that Sean seemed a little fixated, but not in a male-attraction way. More an empire-building way. "That's one of the things that got him placed. Oh, and you can stop smirking now, Sean. We were all rookies once."

"I wasn't."

She swatted his arm lightly and winked as he looked down at her. "You _were_. Between you, me, and these flimsy cardboard walls, there _was_ a time that your trench coat used to get the better of you."

"All lies," he said gracefully. He was still looking out the window at Burkhardt. "Will you excuse me one moment?"

She stood, amused, as he stalked out into open plan, prodded around on Nick's keyboard, and then she heard the magical churning of a test page as the link-up to the printer came to life, as did Nick's face. Quiet words were passed, then Nick flung his jacket on and shot out of the squad room.

Sean returned with a smile, his hands in his pockets. "I sent him out for breakfast. There's no point in him hanging around until his induction begins."

"Good plan. Look, I need to talk to you in private before DeMarcos gets here. He's going to raise the issue of re-brigading the detective teams again, which I intend to fight on principle, but if there's one issue that I'm absolutely not going to bend on―"

"Further cuts at Gresham?"

"Yeah."

"I have your back. It affects me, too."

She appreciated the support. Because she had the smallest units and certain detectives tended not to call for back-up when they _damn well should do_, she'd ended up with an underspend on her share of the uniform salaries, which DeMarcos ― on the economy board ― had chosen to interpret as a reason to permanently cut her budget for officers to be posted at Gresham. So when her detectives _did_ need back-up, units had to travel across county at speed to get there in time. It was expensive, divisive, and potentially very dangerous.

Sergeant Franco rapped on the door and she called him in.

"Eh… got one of Jan's girls out here. She says she'll only talk to him."

She raised her brows. "One of his 'girls'?"

"She works nights," Franco said diplomatically, tossing a nod back at a skinny, under-dressed and hard-eyed girl in her early twenties, hovering in the corridor and looking longingly at the drinks machine.

"Ok." Wilson dug in her jacket pocket for change to hand over. "Let her wait in Interrogation 1, and get her a coffee and a sandwich. I'll let Jan know as soon as he arrives."

"Ma'am." Franco marched off, not looking too pleased about being coffee maid to a prostitute, but hey, it's how they kept their informants informing. And whatever the girl needed to say must be pretty critical for her to come into the precinct to do it. Helen was just about to ask Sean what was in the folder that he'd pulled out of his case when her office phone blared into life. She picked up.

"It's Tony. Put me on speaker, I can't make it in."

"What's up?"

"A cycle messenger messed up my foot."

"That sounds really painful," she said sunnily. It wasn't in the same league of satisfaction as him being tarmacked by Jan on his Yamaha, but just enough to make the sunshine stream a little more brightly through the windows. "Hang on, I'll just set up the speaker."

Sean looked at her quizzically as she put the phone on silent for a moment. "DeMarcos not coming in?"

"He's lurking from home today. Accident."

"Oh no."

She dialled DeMarcos back in and eased into her chair. She could handle him on the phone. He was just an annoying voice: of course she knew that his dismissive little mannerisms were still happening at the other end of the line, but not having to see them right in front of her made a huge difference. She cracked her knuckles, engaged mercilessly-pleasant mode, and told Portland's obnoxious boss exactly what she thought of his plan to send petrol costs through the roof by making the detectives rush all over the county…

**: : : : :**

It was almost fun, watching Helen Wilson go to war. While she didn't win the fight on keeping detective teams local to their precincts, rather than gathered at a host station, she kept her foot down when it came to ensuring that Gresham had enough allocated uniform resources on the ground. She stretched out in her seat, talking loud enough for her point to carry through speakerphone, but not yelling. Certainly not getting mad. Though Sean could picture DeMarcos getting frustrated at the other end of the line at his inability to make a dent in Wilson's easy manner, discussing the matter like they were old friends having a chat rather than succumbing to a territory war. Every now and then she'd rake her fingers through her short, grey-blonde hair and exhale steadily but otherwise remained completely composed.

Sean agreed with her about the idiocy of grouping the detective teams. They were not shared service centres. The Multmonah Police County Department was not a private company, and there were no efficiency gains to be made by demanding that all narcotics guys from the three precincts gathered at Gresham, while all the white collar guys collected at West Side. What next? Grouping the entire homicide section across the county in one area? Madness. But DeMarcos was the senior captain, knew how to bully West Side's Captain Steve Wilkes, knew who to smile at in the Mayor's office, and had presented the re-bridgading plan to the senior management team as a fait accompli. At least Wilson won back her uniformed presence at Gresham. They wouldn't now have to keep working out insane shift overlap schedules to keep both precincts properly covered.

While the conversation was winding up, Sean found his gaze wandering out to the open plan, and back to the could-be-Grimm, who'd returned from his breakfast run, tucking in cheerfully at his desk and clearly not bothered about being completely alone in the office. He wasn't alone for long. SVU's Dutch giant appeared in the corridor, bike helmet under his arm, and Sean watched in bemusement as Burkhardt grabbed a couple of things from his draw and dashed over to Vergeer, coaxing him over to the wall and pestering him into standing up straight. They clearly knew each other. Vergeer remonstrated mildly as Burkhardt stuck something under his foot ― the perpendicular tab of a tape measure ― then stood on a chair to pull it all the way up to the top of Vergeer's head, pencilling the wall and gaping.

No one ever asked Vergeer how big he actually was, though the betting was somewhere between 6-10 and 7-1. Personally, Sean really didn't care, so long as the guy didn't stand right next to him too often. Burkhardt was just hopping down from the chair when his weight tipped the edge forward and only a hastily-dropped bike helmet and urgent shirt grab stopped the rookie from braining himself on the opposite desk. Vergeer lowered him to the floor with a good-natured flick upside the ear and an eye-roll.

Sean could hardly look away, unable to mentally connect this bouncy rookie with the guarded, fierce Marie Kessler. Had he evaded the Grimm gene altogether? Sean wasn't leaving anything to chance. Just to begin with, he wanted to see if Burkhardt was as smart or efficient as he was ebullient, which meant sticking reasonably close to the case he was about to hand over to them.

"There was one other thing," he said to Wilson suddenly, jerking himself out of his own musings as she put the phone down on DeMarcos. "A couple of nights back, there was a sexual assault on an Oregon State student after she'd left a bar in the Pearl. She got out of it with shock and bruises, but there were two guys involved. One grabbed her, and we've been able to narrow down some mug-shots on the basis of some pretty grainy CCTV. She identified two possibles yesterday at the hospital ― their sheets are in the file. The second guy… she thought she recognised although she didn't know him, and he seemed pretty shocked that his associate had grabbed the wrong person. So, clearly not a standard opportunist attack, and possibly a 'complicated' assault."

Wilson groaned, and Sean shrugged apologetically. A near-recognition usually suggested that a vic had seen a public figure or someone seen on TV rather than an acquaintance, and he didn't like the political or media pressure cases any more than she did. She rubbed her hand down her face. "Alright, thanks for the heads-up."

"I'm sorry." Sean stood. "Would you mind keeping me updated? I'll help if I can."

"Thank you."

Sean left the file with her and let himself out with a brisk nod at the incoming officers. He was a little frustrated that he couldn't warn them about what they were up against. He'd gone over the vic's injury photography a few times: bruises on the upper arms and across the chest from being gripped from behind and squeezed, which to him suggested Lausenschlangen. Sean trotted out into Gresham's run-down outdoor car park and hauled open his door, wondering how he could keep on top of the case discreetly. He had his personal suspicions about the second guy in the attack, but he couldn't possibly be approached. Pulling out into traffic, he racked his brains for ways of pressurising the man into slipping up without going anywhere near him.

: : : : :

Jan had prepared notes for him. A scary number of notes. Nick stared at the stack of legal-sized pages clipped together with a bulldog clip and skimmed through them to begin with, his eyes widening. There must be something like 50 pages here...

"Thanks!" Nick said faintly, waving the bundle. "This is really... thorough."

But on a second skim things looked better. Most of the pages were 1-page references files: numbers for the local hospitals and their wings; the different personnel codes for requesting leave; internet links for useful sites he may need to refer to often. Diagrams of how case files were stored on the precinct shared drive, and a guide to the file naming conventions used. It must have taken him forever to pull together. Much of it was hand-written in black, slightly squared-off letters.

"You'll have enough to take on board without fighting technology unnecessarily." Jan handed him a last, smaller sheet discreetly, passing it over from inside a case file he was holding. "Keep this one somewhere private, please. These are the guys that you do not get too familiar with, alright? They're very formal."

Nick tucked the list away in his lockable draw, pinkening slightly and wondering whether this was meant as part of the package, or hastily written as a gentle hint to curb his enthusiasm. "No measuring them against walls, huh?"

"I think they would take a dim view," Jan murmured, but with a smile. He was about to peel off his jacket when the Captain appeared at her door and called over.

"Nick, hop on into my office, please. Jan ― don't make yourself comfortable just yet, there's a night-shifter waiting for you in interview 1."

Looking back from her office door, Nick saw Jan look puzzled. "A night shifter?"

"A working girl, Jan. Who will only talk to you."

"Oh. One of my informants?"

"Well I certainly hope so, or we need to talk about your private life!"

"One of my informants," Jan assured firmly. "Is she alright? Has she been offered anything hot to drink, or―"

"I've covered that already. Nick, take a seat, please. We've been passed a complicated assault from West Side this morning and I need to run you thr― Jan, _what_?"

Nick almost smiled at her exasperated expression as his partner whirled on his heel and marched back up to her office door, towering over his Captain as she propped her fists on her hips, glowering up at him from around his chest-height. He had the feeling that Wilson was forcing her attempt to look as if she found Jan's interference annoying, because there was no annoyance in her eyes whatsoever.

"It's Nick's first day," Jan rumbled. "Is it fair to land him with a 'complicated'?"

"No, it's not fair. But that's life in SVU, isn't it? Now scoot. I'll run through the basics with Nick."

"But ma'am―"

"―Get!"

Jan jogged off to find out what his nightshifter wanted and Nick sat opposite Wilson as she ran him through the contents of the case file. He struggled to listen as fast as she spoke. A 'complicated' was a shortcut expression for any case where they needed to keep press office constantly informed of their movements once they'd identified a potentially high-profile suspect - a PHP. It also meant that they had to refer to PHP suspects as 'persons of interest' where the media were concerned, and adjust their investigative style to avoid making any kind of questioning approach until they had substantial evidence linking a PHP to a scene. That seemed all the wrong way round, to him. A suspect should be a suspect ― period.

"But... what if we can't get the evidence without talking to them?"

"If you hit a wall, obviously you talk to them. But however sure you are about their involvement, they are always only ever 'helping us with our enquiries'."

"And we only ever say 'no comment', right?" Nick just felt that anyone giving the 'no-comment' response looked cagey and insecure about what they were doing.

"If someone sticks a microphone in your face, which _will_ happen from time to time, that's what you're limited to. It may sound annoying now, but when you have felt up your nose, you may find the rules reassuring. Just so you know, apart from me, Jan is the only other one authorised by press office to disclose anything more detailed." She gave him a slightly lopsided smile. "As you'll see for yourself, Jan has a unique talent for informative vagueness that makes him a pain in the ass when he does idiosyncratic stuff, but a bit of an asset when it comes to dealing with journalists."

"Alright," Nick said uncertainly. After the Benji incident, he knew Jan was unorthodox in his approach to problems, but hoped he wouldn't be subjected to vagueness too often while he was trying to learn the ropes. He reached for the file on the desk and flicked through, trying to find the first starting point for enquiries and the victim's name. "Shall I get hold of ... Miss Chester, first? See if she remembers any more? Or do I watch Jan do everything while I'm new?"

"Yes, and bonus points for not calling her 'the vic'. Just so you know, Jan is one of those mentors who's happy to take a back seat and let a new person learn on the hoof. But procedurally, he's boss for now. For the next two months while you're learning the ropes, what he says goes, however irrationally protective you think he's being. Ok, go make that call."

He knew a cue to leave the room when he saw one and strode back over to his desk. Jan was still with his informant.

Nick tried Abigail Chester's home number first, just in case she'd been released from hospital, then flicked to Jan's directory of Portland General switchboards and was horrified to find that each wing had about forty wards. Three switchboards and irritable receptionists later, he found that there was no specific short-terms admissions ward but a collection depending on the nature of the injury or illness keeping the patient in. Nick rubbed his hand through his hair, wondering how he could short cut this. He leafed back through the case file. The guys who went to show her the mugshots yesterday would know where they'd left her, at least. He put a call into West Side precinct and heard a very familiar, unimpressed voice at the other end of the line.

"Hey Wu!" Nick laughed. "What are you doing over there?"

"Well, I was trying to further my plans for world domination, but my luck sucks right now."

"Huh?"

"I volunteered to relieve sick-note Walsh for two weeks so I could smuggle myself onto 'Table Renard', only to find that he's been ordered to go over to Portland to cover DeMarcos."

Nick rolled his eyes. Wu's attempts to get onto Team Renard were becoming legendary. "You are obsessed with that guy. What's the big deal?"

"Oh, let's see. He's quiet, which is always a winner. He doesn't get in my ear about digitizing evidence. He's civil, he's efficient and he carries his own damn boxes. What's not to love? Oh, and he's a hunter-gatherer who moves with his 'family'. So one day, when _he's_ on the next stage of his plans for world domination, he may actually take me wherever he's going. Anyway, what can I do you for?"

"I'm trying to track down the guys who went to see Abigail Chester—"

"Ah… not ringing a bell. Describe case?"

"She was attacked a couple of nights back on her way home from a bar in the pearl―"

"Ah, Zena! Yes. Got you. Whoever tried to attack her picked on the _wrong_ girl. Built like a Hungarian hammer-thrower, apparently. She was last seen on Lincoln ward, South Wing Portland General, tearing the balls off Hanna and Crowne for asking what she was wearing when assaulted."

Nick blinked. "You have an _awesome_ memory."

"Well, when you've heard the same rant a few times, the details kind of stick."

"Appreciate it. Beer Friday?"

"Three cold ones and a shot for the favour."

"Wu, you're getting expensive. Ok, you're on." Nick finally got through to Lincoln ward and caught 'Zena' while she was ordering a cab. He offered her a lift back to her apartment so they could talk in the comfort of her own home instead, and by way of agreement she told him to hurry the hell up.

Nick dropped the phone down into the cradle, blinking, but trying not to take it personally. Guys in general probably weren't high on her list of 'favourite things' right now. Jan still hadn't emerged from interview 1. Nick waited a few more minutes, not sure whether he was expected to go on ahead or wait for the senior detective, then wrote out a note to say where he'd gone and that he'd left the case file in Jan's top drawer. Miss Chester might leave before he got there if he didn't pitch up soon. Just as he got to his car, Jan jogged up holding a sports bag.

"Thanks for the note. So you tracked her down! Well done. Who did you speak to? I can never find anyone at Portland General without going through Hayley."

"I called Wu." Nick buckled up and reversed. "Who's Hayley?"

"A very, very sweet nurse in neurology."

"Her number wasn't on your hospital directory of contacts."

Jan winked. "It's her private cell, Nick."

Nick stared. All the nurses he'd ever met while in uniform were rigidly distant and totally impervious to charm. "How the hell did you get her private number? Did you save her first-born child from abduction, or something?"

"Smiling worked, as did 'please', 'thank you', and all those minor details. And I think she has a thing for big guys."

"Tall guys?"

"No, big ones."

Nick felt annoyingly miniature all of a sudden. "Size isn't everything."

"I never said it was, Nick. But you asked how I got Hayley's number… and anyway, it's not like it's a contact I'm hogging. I'm happy to re-introduce you to her."

"What do you mean?"

"You have actually met, but she looked after you during your rather… elaborate concussion following the unfortunate incident of the devious squirrel. Not much was sticking in your short term memory at that point."

Nick darted a bemused look sideways. "How did the squirrel become the villain of the piece? Because I don't think it was actually the squirrel that threw me into the tree, was it? In fact, I think it was a seven-foot Dutchman with limited bicep contro―"

"Hey great! Rap sheets. Very helpful. I'll track down alibis while we're on the road."

Nick rolled his eyes mildly as Jan shrugged off the near-fatal-injury conversation and got cracking on the perp chase-ups from the file. It had to be done sooner rather than later, he realised. One guy was ruled out within a few minutes with a cast-iron alibi: he'd spent the night before last cooling off in an Idaho Sheriff's department after getting into a scrap with a deputy over a DUI charge. Which left Lucius Stern, a night-shift worker at North West Cargo. Jan called his home and was threatened with elevenses by Stern's mother, who was only able to confirm that her lovely little boy wasn't home. A slightly less affectionate call to his boss at NW Cargo HQ unfortunately bore no further fruit: he could only confirm that all the inventories and storage removals due had been completed the night he was on shift, but because Stern was a trusted worker, there were no clock or out times. So they'd have to track him down later at work if they couldn't reach him beforehand.

Nick pulled into Portland General's underground carpark just as Jan was slipping his cell away. They found their way to Lincoln ward and were greeted by a bright-eyed nurse in her early twenties who greeted Jan like an old friend with a peck on each cheek as he bent down about two feet for a hug. Nick presented his hand, which she shook briskly with a polite smile. Very much the standard nurse brush-off that he was used to. He met Jan's eye. _Hayley?_

_Dina,_ Jan mouthed back. _Hayley's in neurology._

Of course. Hayley wouldn't be the only nurse Jan had charmed the socks off over the years.

Nick followed Jan to the waiting room, where Abi Chester sat bolt upright on the edge of one of the seats, her fingers clenched around the cushion, still wearing the skinny jeans and tailored tank she'd gone to the club in. She was well-endowed in the chest and in compensation, _very _well built – vaguely reminiscent of Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. Abigail reminded him of a line that his first girlfriend Dula came out with after she'd hit guys who'd been a little grabby: "the thing about girls with big chests is that we have strong arms, and short tempers." Abigail had a great physique, but she was in bad shape. Nick could see why she'd been so terse on the phone: she could barely sit without wanting to weep. And his partner swept right in with the charm.

"Are you sure you're ready to leave?" Jan hunkered down in front of her, about the same height even when squatting.

She looked him up and down in disbelief, which he seemed to accept as standard response to his conversational gambits.

He picked up the prescription slip on the seat cushion next to her. "Codeine. Alright. I'll go and collect these from the pharmacy. Are those the only clothes you have with you?"

She reddened and stared at the floor.

"Nick, could you grab our spares bag? I'll meet you back at the car."

As Jan retreated down the corridor, she stared at his back in disbelief, then over at Nick. "Spares bag?"

Nick opened up and pulled out the sweater, socks, sweatpants and loose tee-shirt inside it, avoiding her gaze. He could see her face out the corner of his eye and her expression of gratitude and relief was just painful. Jan had even packed sneakers in a choice of two sizes, and she went for the 8, with an awkward smile of admission that she couldn't even get her size in the damn shops, let alone from a cop on pick-up duty. Nurse Dina helped her change while he waited in the corridor outside, and once she was decent, he crammed her club clothes into Jan's bag and they made their very slow way out the building.

"Thanks," she said suddenly, as they crept towards his car.

"For what?"

"Being patient." She shot him a watery smile. "I guess you know all about hurting your back, right?"

"Ooooh yes. I interrupted a robbery at a grocer's store once and had to dodge a pineapple pitched at my head. It was an awkward landing. So, uh, I feel your pain."

"You guys are a little different from the fellas who came yesterday. Total schmucks. And then this forensics guy sat there for an hour getting lint off my clothes and didn't say a fricking word to me."

Forensics! Nick felt his heart drop into his privates. He hadn't even thought about forensics. It was a damn good job the guy had already come and gone because he'd just shoved her club gear into Jan's bag willy-nilly. He swallowed, feeling that he should stick up for shy forensic people on principle, now. "Most folks don't know what to say after an experience like yours. 'Are you ok' feels a little trite, even if you mean it."

"It's better than nothing," she muttered.

He was saved from further comment by Jan's reappearance with the pharmacy bag. There was a moment of almost comical delay as he tried to concertina himself in the back of Nick's Ford, then they were on their way. At least it was a short drive to her apartment. Once inside, Jan got her as comfortable as possible on the couch while he made the coffees and got her water for pills. He was intrigued to see how Jan handled the conversation about the assault.

"Good job back at the hospital, Nick," Jan murmured. "She's a little more pro-cop now than she was. You ok to talk to her about what happened?"

"Me?"

"Well, you seem to have developed a bit of a rapport, so it seems natural to build on that."

"Uh…." Seriously yeah, and seriously no. He wanted to make his mark. But not by completely fucking up on his first day. Nick rattled the cups, forgot who was taking which sugar and milk combination and dropped the spoon down the side of the garbage pail, which seemed to weigh a tonne when he bent down to move it and retrieve the cutlery. He felt like an indecisive boy scout and probably looked like one, too.

"I can lead if you'd prefer―"

"No! No, it's fine." Nick swallowed. "I'm just not sure where to start with this whole second-man issue."

Jan picked up his coffee. "When an entry point isn't obvious with a victim, just start out with how they're feeling. Sometimes they just bark 'how do you think?' to which your response can be 'scared and mad'. They usually take it themselves, from there. But in terms of this other guy, let's just try to get a sense of what background he might be from, for now. It's only been two days, so she's unlikely to tell us anything about how he actually looks."

"How do I know if I'm…" God, he felt so much like a kid all of a sudden. "How do I know if I'm getting it right?"

"I'll stay quiet. Having said that, I may add further questions at the end if there's something I think we haven't covered. You good to go?"

"Yeah." At least armed with a strategy, he felt a little firmer on his feet. Nick picked up the drinks and they went back into the front room.

As it happened, she was more than happy to help as much as she could with everything he asked: Abi Chester was a five-times state swimming champion and Judo blue belt, and not used to feeling vulnerable. She would've spent hours with a sketch artist or hypnotist if it would've identified the bastard, but she tearfully maintained that she just couldn't see his face in her mind's eye anymore. She was only aware that for a second, she thought she knew the face, but having spent the day before trying to mentally reconstruct it, she'd almost written off that moment of recognition as panic-induced deja-vu.

Which gave Nick a brain wave. "Would you two give me five minutes?"

As he sprinted out of her apartment, he heard the beginning of a gentle spiel from Jan about corner-of-eye syndrome, which was pretty much where his own logic was headed. Darting down at street level, he found a store near her apartment block and bought every local and regional paper he could find. She may have seen this guy's face before in completely unthreatening circumstances, such as a picture, which would give her no reason to pin down where she'd seen him before. He sprinted back up to her apartment and spread the papers out on the foot of the couch.

She frowned, slightly. "What are these for?"

"Ok, you don't recognise this guy but you thought you knew his face. So he's not famous, and he's not known to you. What if he's just a frequent member of a public figure's entourage? And what if that figure is in the news all the time?"

Jan gave a small, approving smile that made him feel ten feet tall.

Abigail nodded. "That might make sense… like if he works for the Mayor's or DA's office, or something?"

"Well I hope not. But… this may help. Or jog a memory, or whatever. Would you call, if anything occurs to you? If you can't get down to the store, I'll bring the papers to you."

"I'll call," she promised, looking a little brighter for having something productive to do. She even smiled at him. At _him_.

On their way out, Nick grabbed her kitchen garbage bag and put a clean one in the pail. The last thing she needed was a stink she couldn't do anything about because she couldn't bend or lift, and he hadn't gotten the impression, from having looked around her apartment, that there was anyone around who might do that for her.

**X x X**

Lucius Stern was late for work.

God knows where the guy went between seven, which is when his mother thought he started his shift, and ten ― which was the time glaring from the radio clock on Jan's Toyota Jeep dash ― but he sure as hell wasn't at warehouse 6, doing inventory. Mrs Stern's terrible tea and worse cake sat in his stomach like lead infused with Earl Grey, and even Jan looked vaguely queasy. Then again, he'd been preoccupied since his informant called when they got back to Gresham. Nick kept thinking of Abi Chester, and how she was getting on: grim experience told him that codeine wasn't going to touch the wild snaps of muscle pain she'd be having right now, and he didn't like the idea of her putting up with that alone.

"Jan, is it normal to obsess about a vic in the early stages of a case?"

"If they're vulnerable, yes."

"Oh. Good." Well, not good but… good that it was normal.

"Sorry, Nick, I need to stretch. Would you mind ducking?"

"Huh?" He did, and not a moment too soon: Jan's fist rocketed out where his head had vaguely been, and his other arm went out of the window as he yawned cavernously. Nick grinned: Jan had warned him that stakeouts made him feel like a caged animal and right now he looked like a super-bored lion. Nick bit his lip and looked out the window as Jan completed the effect by finishing his 32oz extra-milky latte and scratching behind his ear.

He straightened up and carried on twiddling his thumbs a few more minutes. They were parked in the complete blackness of the shadow of warehouse 4, the only light in a 200 yard radius being the light from Jan's radio LCD. As a stakeout virgin, Nick wasn't finding the wait any easier than cramped Jan, and having fiddled with everything in the car that wasn't screwed down, needed something to do with his hands. Or vocal chords, for Christ's sake.

"Is it safe to listen to the radio?"

"Yes. It should be fine up to level 7."

Level 7 was quiet, but piped enough volume of the sounds of '67 to keep them companionably quiet for a little while as they lap-drummed to 'I'm a believer' and 'Light my fire'. But the radio station didn't believe in letting listeners enjoy a roll, and yet another commercial break kicked in with more inane adverts. In this one, some schmoozer tried drumming the importance of male moisturisation into them, courtesy of Pears for Men.

"...When you get up in the morning, you never know what your day will throw at you. Long meetings, air conditioning, bad directions, terrible queues..."

Nick snorted. "Well, you _know_ you're going to get all of those. Part of daily life, really."

"...And at the end of those days, you can be left feeling a little tired and dry. Not with Pears for Men! A one-shot in the morning will keep you going all day. So whether you're just a little worn, or lost, or meeting the woman you love, you're still feeling fresh-faced and―"

"Huh?" He pulled a face at the radio. "If you're lost, you stress about getting home, don't you? You don't sit in the driver's seat going 'Oh my God! Not only am I in the boondocks _but_ _I have tight skin!_'"

"Hmmm." Jan laced his fingers over his gut vaguely.

"I mean, when you call the automobile club for a rescue, you don't ask them to bring moisturiser with them, do you?"

"Not typically, no."

"Not really the highest priority for 99.99% of guys."

"Different things are important to different people, Nick."

He glanced sideways, realising that he was probably talking to a member of the 00.01% of emergency moisturisers, and grinned. "I bet _you've_ got a one-shot pot of Men-Pears at home."

"I draw the line at sharing a product with babies, however strenuously they try to rebrand for men."

"But… you moisturise? With other brands?"

"I have been known to." He opened one speculative eye. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No…" Nick had difficulty keeping a straight face. "I'm just struggling to reconcile the mental image of huge dude with nurses falling all over him with this mass creaming crime against masculinity."

"Say what you like, Nick, but you're a cop. There will be air-conditioning, Portland rain and stakeouts in your every week. Don't come whining to me in five years if you've destroyed your boyish looks and turned into a walnut."

"Yeah, right."

"Did you know that Tony DeMarcos is only 53?"

Nick found himself rubbing his cheek in paranoia and feeling less than smooth, stubble notwithstanding. "Is it me, or is it dry in this car?"

"Glove box."

The world's shortest rummage enabled him to close his fingers around a tub of Nivea for Men that was just about big enough to go bowling with. He unscrewed the dark navy lid and sniffed. It smelt of absolutely nothing. That might be ok, then. He rubbed a bit on the back of his hand. Very cooling. He could maybe get some, not tell anyone about it, and stay looking 27 for a few more years. He glanced over at Jan, who was raking a hand through impeccable hair and leaving it looking just as impeccable afterwards.

"Got hair spray in there too? Oh – bad tune!" He winced at the sounds of the Bee Gees squeaking about the lights going on in Massachusetts. "Eugh! High pitched, high pitched…."

"Feel free to find the off switch."

Nick leant forward, squinting at the dials. "Which―"

"Yours or the radio's. I really don't really mind!"

"Wow, Jan, that was almost rude!"

"Only almost? I misjudged that, then."

Nick snapped the radio off in a fake huff. "Someone's being catty tonight!"

Jan snapped a sharp sideways look at him, taking Nick aback a little, then his shoulders dropped and he wiped his hands down his face. "I'm really sorry, Nick. It's not you."

"It's alright."

"No, it's not... I'm taking things out on you more than a little."

Nick smiled sideways. By Whelan's standards, Jan's snits were pretty low key, and he'd never had an apology off his former partner for anything ― ever. "I'll survive. Are you allowed to talk about your informants? Because you've been on edge since you took that call earlier."

"From Big Phoebe, yes. I emailed her a copy of Stern's photo when we got back to Gresham from Abi's place. She texted back, admitting she'd seen him around. Later on she called, sounded panicked, then hung up on me. She never, ever does that. It's concerning."

"Was that the same girl that showed up this morning?"

"No, that was Freebie Phoebe."

Nick even felt his eyebrows lifting involuntarily. "Freebie Phoebe?"

"She…ah.. had a poor grasp of market values when she first started working and chronically underpriced herself. The other girls never let her live it down."

Nick pressed his knuckles against his lips. "Right. So… are there any other Phoebes?"

"There's also Teeny Phoebe."

Nick glanced over at Jan to see if he was kidding, but the guy looked completely sincere. "She's friends with the other two? Because of the freaky name thing?"

"I think Teeny's actually called Alice, but she likes to blend in. Big took her under her wing about a year ago. They all look out for each other. Anyway, an unpleasant picture's emerging, Nick. Without wishing to sound perverse, I couldn't help noticing Abi Chester's height and...um... frontal…build, and wondering if it wasn't actually Big Phoebe that Stern and his associate were after."

"Ok, so what's the unpleasant picture? Apart of course from two guys terrorising a girl who just wanted a club night?"

"Here's the difficulty ― what I'm getting from them is more from what they're not saying, rather than what they've told me, which doesn't really further our case. But it looks like a bunch of new girls have moved onto their patch, all of whom are more scared of someone or something else than the threat of being smacked round the head by Big Phoebe."

"And she hung up on you earlier? You thinking she's been grabbed by whoever's scaring them?"

"I'm struggling to come to any other conclusions. Between this, and the freight container case I was working a few weeks back... I'm starting to think there's a domestic trafficking situation going on, and that it's being sponsored by someone."

"The Captain wasn't kidding about complicated assault, was she?"

"She doesn't kid about anything, Nick."

: : : : :

Jan heard the distant crunch of tyres on gravel and held off on telling Nick until the sound was within human hearing range. Two cars, he thought, and this was confirmed as a beat up black caddy pulled up first outside NW Cargo, followed by a sleeker Audi, which circled round to face the way it came. Planning a swifter exit? Jan discreetly checked his Beretta for full operation and laid it on the lower part of the dash. With the window still open from his earlier stretch, he cocked his ear for sounds and thought he heard distant thumping, but it was too occasional and faint for him to be sure. Next to him, Nick had straightened in his seat.

A big guy stomped out of the Caddy, wearing green coveralls and smoking. Stern. While Stern's mother's baking had been pretty inhuman, she definitely was, otherwise he'd have taken one look at Stern and thought 'Siegbarste.' He was around 6-5 or so and stocky, like an American football player gone to seed. Stern stomped over to the NW Cargo building, unlocked a side door, then reappeared at the bottom of a roller door which he flung upwards, spreading a rectangle of light over the yard in front of the warehouse. Then he walked over to greet the expensively-dressed guy climbing out of the Audi.

"Nick," he murmured, "call back-up."

Nick pulled his cell out, but was still staring really hard at the back of the Caddy. Jan followed his gaze. There was passenger in the rear seat, this much he could make out, but he wondered what Nick was focussing so intently on.

"I think there's someone in the trunk, Jan."

"What are you seeing?"

Nick wiped his eyes like he was doubting himself all of a sudden.

"What did you think you saw?"

"There's a smashed rear indicator, a hole into the back, and... I'm sure I saw... an eye blinking. Jesus, does everyone stuff each other in trunks, round here?"

Jan thought of the Jagerbars getting lunchtime sleep over the winter in the strangest of places. "There's rather a lot of it around, I'm afraid. Bear with me a moment, Nick. I need to hear what's going on up there."

As he tuned in his hearing, he was glad that Nick had connected with despatch and his attention was diverted to his cell. Right up ahead, Stern and his associate, still in shadow, started arguing and until Stern knocked his better-heeled associate out of the way and dragged a dazed girl out of the back passenger seat by her upper arm. Jan gritted his teeth. She wasn't a local 'regular' girl, but someone who'd probably been lured from a bad home and drugged. Stern shoved her towards suited guy and she shuffled towards him dumbly, with no idea what was going on.

"There's your acquisition, pal. Have fun."

The shadow may have obscured the details of the guy's face, but Jan saw the suit shift and broaden as the guy shifted to Lausenschlange, finally stepping out of the shadows as he glared at Stern, shoving the girl back at him.

"She probably weighs about 110lb tops ―she'll last ten seconds and snap like a twig! I'm not paying. She'll last about five minutes into mating season and I'll have to move on with a body to bury. Where's the other girl? That's who I came for! You said you had her!"

"I do! She's in the fucking trunk! I told you I got her, right?"

Jan pulled his gun back off the dash as Nick came off the despatch line. "Right, here's how it's going to go. I will confront Stern and his associate. I would like you to get both girls to safety. Are you ok with that?"

"Yeah."

Of course he wasn't. Nick's first day ― this was not something Jan wanted him hit with.

"Nick? Pretend you're wearing a uniform. You're armed, you're on rescue duty…get back in your comfort zone. Alright?"

"Right." Nick's voice had more conviction to it this time and Jan clapped him on the shoulder.

He switched off the power on the onboard computer so he could wind the window up silently and manually, and was about to fling his door open when an urgent poke in his side halted him. "What?"

"Ah… huge dog, Jan. Literally just arrived." Nick glanced over apologetically, like he was somehow responsible for appearance of the slavering hound peering in through his window, paws spread on the glass and saliva dripping to the floor.

Jan swore inwardly. He hated big dogs. He really, really hated big dogs. They were heavy. They were relentless. They made him sneeze like a fiend. "Fuck. Ok, plan B. Call despatch back, request animal control, then come out and assist. Do _not _leave this car until you know help is en route. Is that understood?"

"Where are you going?"

"To get the girls back."

"On your own?"

"Call despatch, Nick. Now."

Stern had swaggered over to the trunk of his car and hauled out the girl trapped in it, her arms tied behind her back. Big Phoebe. Jan would know her anywhere. He pitched her out of the car face first into the grit and the Rottweiler at Nick's door turned its head to glare at the unmoving morsel on the ground. Then it snarled and took off towards her at a sprint.

Jan slammed the car door, snarled, and went after the dog.

The next few minutes passed in a painful, itchy-eyed blur. He'd had to leap into the rectangle of light to suppress the dog before it got to Big Phoebe and landed on it, his hands round its forearms and the weight of his body keeping it pinned. It ― she, rather ― was strong, though, probably weighed about 150lb and hugely resented being pinned under a human version of a wild cat. Saliva-coated jaws kept snapping at his face and he managed to keep himself out of biting range by rearing back without letting go, but the dander was beginning to make him choke. He focussed on keeping his grip. Around the edges of his vision he could see Nick's feet as he picked up Big Phoebe and delivered her to the safety of the car, then pelted after the other girl, confused and terrified as she tried running down the pitch-black dirt track out of the warehouse area.

Stern was down ― shot in the chest by his associate as he hung out the back window of his retreating Audi. Jan couldn't see well enough out of watering eyes to pick out the plate properly. With the gunfire over and both girls evidently removed to the safety of his car, Nick's legs hovered into his line of sight, then his upper body as he hunkered down, his face concerned.

"You alright, Jan?"

For someone trying to suppress one of the hounds of the Baskervilles ― a pregnant fucking hound of the Baskervilles ― Jan felt he was doing ok overall. He squeezed moisture out of his eyes by screwing them shut and shook his head to sprinkle the water out onto the grit. "I'm a little uncomfortable. Did you get an ETA on the backup?"

"They were ten minutes out when I called. Uh… do you need a tissue?"

"I need a box of the damn things, Nick." Jan yanked his head back again as his captive lunged upwards with a snarl. "Girls ok?"

Nick grimaced. "Hard to tell with Big Phoebe. She swears a lot and she doesn't like me, but I think she's largely glad not to be in the trunk anymore. The other girl needs some serious crash-out time."

"Right. Well done for getting them back in one piece."

"Uh…Jan?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really, really sorry but I didn't get the car plates. It took off when I was getting the other girl back and… it was just too dark. He'd already fired at Stern, I thought he was going to shoot at her…"

That was disappointing since he hadn't, either, but hardly Nick's fault. Jan sighed, trying to ignore the sensation of the dog's unborn puppies trying to kick the shit out of his inner thighs through the womb. "Don't sweat it, Nick. You did a good job."

Then he felt vibrating, and the terrible, terrible sound of 'Heart of Glass' shattered the night air, advertising an incoming call from Captain Wilson. Oh… great. He was still in her bad books over the state of Nick's head for several days after the tree-flinging incident… and probably wouldn't be best pleased that he'd exposed their new rookie to a life-and-death on his first day on the job. His arms were starting to shake from containing the Rottweiler.

"Ah… Nick? Two favours. First – please answer my cell. My position's rather committing, as you can see."

"Just a little bit," Nick agreed, and gingerly bent over to slide the brand new iPhone out of his back pocket. Debbie Harry was still ululating into the November air. "Second favour?"

"Please just let her know I'll call her back, alright? If she backs you into a corner, tell her the truth about why I can't answer the phone, but… if you could go for an air of…"

"Informative vagueness?" Nick took the call with a tired smile. "Ma'am? No, this is Nick Burkhardt. Yeah he's here, but he has his hands full right now… he said he'd call you straight back as soon as he was able. No, no he's fine… he seems… largely on top of things just at the moment …yeah, I'll call Lieutenant Renard in the morning, no problem…"

Jan exhaled in relief as Nick fielded the call magnificently, telling her nothing useful whatsoever, while still managing to sound really polite and helpful. The kid had a talent. He might have to talk to Press Office about spreading the journalistic load around a little. In some ways, he was glad that the Lausenschlange had taken off when he did, because he didn't like the idea of Nick trying to tackle a furious snake in mating season: they were aggressive, super-strong and indefatigable. But he had the distinct impression that Nick would've found his own way to overcome that, if he'd had to. True, he wasn't one of this life's giants, but size wasn't everything.

_**To be continued….**_


	4. Size isn't everything (part 2)

**And here we go folks – part two! I'm sorry about the wait… I was depending on some annual leave giving me lots of me-time that didn't actually arrive in that kind of quantity, lol. **

**If you recall, we left Jan in the rather committing position of pressing a preganant Rottweiler against the floor while awaiting animal control…**

**Thanks so much for all the wonderful reviews, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the first part! I hope that the second follows through ok xxxxxx**

By the time Nick got off the phone with Captain Wilson, full back up had arrived. Harper came to take Stern's body away; a bus turned up for the girls and animal control was hovering around Jan. Or rather, animal control was cowering behind an unhurried vet sitting cross legged close to the Rottweiler's head, his fingers steepled under his chin. Jan was sweating heavily and clearly tiring. Sure, so he was huge, strong and heavy, but it wasn't exactly a Chihuahua he was trying to suppress. Nick was just jogging over to see if he could help when Wu fell into pace with him.

"Hey Nick."

"What you doing over here? A little off your patch, isn't it?"

"Do _not _get me started. I had ten minutes till end of shift when the great Gresham-cover nightmare resumed. Never mind… Whoa! What the _hell_ is going on?"

Nick followed his gaze over to the dog, which had resumed a fresh spit-spraying round of furious barking and struggling while Jan tried to hang on, arguing tersely with the vet.

"…I've barely got her under control as it is! I'm not 'spooning' with a vicious dog!..."

"…it would help if I could get a better view of her underside…"

Nick blinked as Jan rolled sideways, now struggling insanely to keep his grip and yelling with effort ― through gritted teeth. "Well, He's … ah…"

Wu put his hands on his hips. "Gives a whole new meaning to 'curious incident of the dog in the night time.'"

Nick pressed his hand to his mouth to silence his involuntary laugh ― no way would _he_ go after a guard dog and lie on top of it ― but it cut short as Jan's patience finally hit its limit with the vet.

"WOULD YOU _PLEASE_ GET ON WITH IT? HOW MUCH MORE 'STILL' DO YOU WANT THIS FUCKING DOG?"

"She's _pregnant_! I need to do this carefully!"

Wu scratched his head. "Y….eah. In good time, this is going to be _high_ on my list of things to mock him for. But I might wait for him to get his sense of humour back first. I'll just go get him some pills."

"Pills?"

"Anti-histamines. I keep some in my glove box. Pollen and I ― we don't dance."

Nick bent down by the dog's back legs and hovered his hands, wondering where it would be safe to get a grip without getting ripped. . Then he heard a squeak. He looked down. A black and tan bundle pulled its head out of the grit by his knee. It was sticky and confused and tipped over onto its back, tinsy legs flailing. "Whooo..."

Nick put a tentative hand up, but what was he supposed to say? 'Congratulations, it's a boy-pup?'

He didn't have to say anything ― Jan of the spooky hearing lifted his head, his expression full of flat, weary darkness through the bloodshot eyes. "_Please _tell me that wasn't what I thought it was?"

Nick crumpled his face in apologetic confirmation as pup number two appeared.

"Splendid!" Death-wish vet announced, "She's whelping. It's all the stress you see. A fairly premature labour, but…" he shuffled down to the business end, alongside Nick, and scooped the pups into his hands. "From the size of these little fellows… not dangerously so. Righto ― there's at least one more, then I can pop her to sleep for a while to recover."

Jan's expression suggested that he could care less about the dog's recovery. Not _much_ less, but still…

… Twenty minutes later, they were back at the car, Nick fuming at Big Phoebe making a run for it while Jan had been busy holding down the animal that nearly made mincemeat of her. Jan was tipping backwards over his car roof at strange angles, trying to wash itching out of his eyes with a bottle of mineral water without soaking all his clothes.

"Where do you think she went?" Nick asked, exasperated. It wasn't as if prostitutes had a directory, and she'd apparently refused point blank ever to tell Jan where her 'base' was. "She's got to know that we need to speak to her, right? About what this guy in the Audi looked like?"

"Helping the police is not high on her list of priorities."

"I thought she was an informant?"

"Bugger!" Jan tipped a good glug of the bottle all over himself and wiped the water off his face. "There's a trust curve to follow with informants and you need to protect them from a lot of stuff before they start seeing you as the lesser of several evils. Depending on who they're working for, they can disappear without trace if caught 'snitching'."

"And you stopping her from getting chewed up doesn't count as 'protecting her from stuff'?"

Jan peeled off his soaked shirt, popping his trunk. "I'm a bit lower down the curve with Big Phoebe than I am with Freebie. Then again, Big has had a shittier life. It'll take her longer to want to help."

"You are weirdly chilled about this."

"Chilled?" Jan snorted, pulling a fresh teeshirt over his head. "I can barely see, I'm cold, I'm aching, I'm feeling _ever-so-slightly_ traumatised after having puppies-by-proxy... Actually, I'm angry. She's probably hurt and neither of us saw a purse on her or in the Caddy trunk, so where she's going to go tonight, I have no idea. It was stupid of her to run."

Nick thought it was pretty thankless, too, but limited himself to an irritated sigh. Five of them had now been up close to Audi-guy, but he knew how to stay in the shadows. The dazed girl from the passenger seat couldn't help much, barely remembering her own name. Jan grumbled quietly in the background as he braced his arms against the side of the car and lunged backwards, trying to stretch his back out.

"Want me to drive back?"

Jan's eyes widened in dread. "That's very kind of you, Nick, but―"

"The answer to that is 'yes'," Wu cut in suddenly, as he approached.

"But―"

"I've taken the liberty of transferring Nick's insurance details from the squad room over to your car. Jan, you are not driving home. The anti-histamines will make you drowsy."

"But the car's―"

"'Nuff!" Wu barked, and pulled the driver door open for Nick. "Jan, obey! Tonight, you get chauffeured."

Jan smiled emotionally, putting a protective hand on the roof like he was fighting between appearing ungracious and fearing terribly for his car. Nick reached way up and slapped him consolingly on the shoulder, then slid the driver seat forward about ten notches. "I'll drive like a centenarian, I promise."

"I didn't get anything more from the girl in the bus, but they're taking her to Treeview under the name 'Jane Adamson'. You guys go straight home tonight, and you can try her memory and conversational skills again tomorrow. Hell, where's she going _now_?"

Nick trotted forward to intercept the wobbly girl as she approached, but she toddled round him and headed decisively for Jan. He looked down at her quizzically, then jumped slightly as she issued a waist-height sneak hug, mumbled something about 'really nice big guys', then turned and toddled back to the ambulance, about five degrees off course. Nick went after her, steering her back to the gurney, where he gave her a warm smile and helped the paramedic lay her back out again. She stared glassily at him as the back doors were shut and the bus took off.

You're welcome, he thought, clearly not classing as a nice big guy, then inched the car out of the lot and towards the freeway.

**X x X**

Sean had precisely five minutes of work done at just before eight in the morning when DeMarcos crashed into his office, really not very good on his crutches. He gazed up calmly. "I thought you were on leave?"

"I'm fine. You're off relief." Grunting, DeMarcos made his way round the back of his desk and ditched his crutches into the corner. "Oh, and take that red file, second back on the Cabinet by the door. Needs to go to the DA's office, care of a guy called Berlingo. Press agent."

"Right," Sean said stiffly.

The name was very, very familiar and at least now he had a completely legitimate reason to go ruffle the agent's feathers and see if he woged to Lausenschlange as suspected. Still, a little more courtesy from DeMarcos wouldn't hurt. For example, calling him earlier to say he could head straight for West Side: that would've been helpful. He packed up, took the file and just had his hand on the door when he was called back.

"Renard ― when you gonna pull your finger out your ass and go for your Captaincy board?"

He looked back, curious. "There are no vacancies. Are there?"

"So, pass your board and then wait for a vacancy for your interview. I'm not going to be Captain forever. When I've moved up, I want someone decent in charge of this place. Go get your substantive rank ― it'll be a walk in the park and God knows you spend enough time covering."

While all this was very gratifying, Sean distrusted it. "Why wouldn't you back your own Lieutenants?"

DeMarcos looked a little depressed all of a sudden. "They're fine as Lieutenants, but… you and me, we have that natural air of command, right? The sergeants worship the floors we walk across 'cause we do what needs to be done. They cheer lead us. They know that when they report problems with their guys, we'll set 'em straight without doing 'kumbaya', or calling them by their Christian names, or mopping their bloodied heads after gambling debt beat-ups."

Sean knew exactly what DeMarcos was referring to ― Wilkes' lax discipline ― but happened to take Wilson's view that keeping people at surname-length was a good way of keeping them home when you needed them to do overtime. He smiled politely on his way out. "Thanks. I'll bear that in mind."

He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if that mouth talked absolute shit most of the time. A natural air of command? It must be nice for DeMarcos, living on that totally different planet of his. Sean left the building at a fast march, shaking his head in disbelief. Worshipped by the Sergeants? Hardly. He could see Wu bribing the cleaners to apply that extra layer of polish to the marble on the off-chance the Captain would go skidding and break something unpleasant.

It took him precisely five minutes to get over to the DA's office and up to the finance and corporate services floor, where the press team usually sat. Getting there, he found that Berlingo had managed to relocate himself a little closer to the legal bullpen. Or else, he'd been moved there. A lot of the DA staff were under tighter watch right now: Sean knew this because his white collar guys were burning the midnight oil trying to find evidence of misuse of public funds by some of the public servants. Sean knew that they were close to bringing him down because of his undeclared business interests in the Hampton Grill in the Pearl, but he didn't want the man to be shamed for anything less than the full-scale abduction and assault crime wave he was responsible for: supplying girls to his 'associates' to get them through the Lausenschlange mating season.

Sean trotted upstairs, feeling progress at last: if he could frustrate Berlingo into a woge in an office of Jagerbar lawyers, his colleagues may be less inclined to protect him under the media embargo surrounding investigations into public servants. In which case, Nick and his partner could follow standard investigative procedures to bring Berlingo down without having to tiptoe around. But time was of the essence: mating seasons could go on for weeks, leaving a lot of women from all backgrounds turning up drugged and assaulted in the woods. He stood and stared at Berlingo from the corridor by the lifts, determined to get him, this time.

He'd investigated Berlingo during the last mating season, last year, but then the attacks stopped and he couldn't justify taking enquiries any further. He couldn't even confirm that Berlingo was Lausenschlange, back then. It was all smoke, shadows, instincts and patterns. The cop side of him held back from casual off-list murder on the grounds of species. But if he'd seen Berlingo woge, he'd have simply put him on Kessler's hit list. He got his laptop out of its case and held it, the file on top.

He rapped on Berlingo's desk and dropped the red file. "Delivery from Tony DeMarcos."

"What is it?" Berlingo didn't look up.

Sean bristled. "It's sealed. So presumably it concerns a particularly… slippery individual."

Pale blue eyes snapped up, paranoid, but then he recovered himself. "Put in the intray. I'll get to it."

"You do that. No one likes extra work when they're… tired."

"You saying I look tired?"

"It's the shadows under the eyes." Sean hinted at the lilac markings that sometimes indicated the Lausenschlange in human form. "Burning the candle at both ends? Take it easy."

He turned and walked away before the guy could reply, checking the reflection in his laptop surface. Definitely Lausenschlange. He noticed a guy with dark hair a couple of desks down lift his head and glare over, startled and furious, wogeing briefly to Reinigen and back. Sean took note: he could be useful to speak to. He headed straight for the stairs and trotted all the way down, surprisingly overtaken on the third landing by a sobbing Maushertz girl about half his size.

His main job was done. He couldn't tell Nick or partner outright that Berlingo was responsible, because that was wesen knowledge. But he could give him last year's assault box files and suggest a connection. He drove back to West Side and settled himself behind his own desk, pleased to see Wu covering for Walsh. The guy was on the ball and returned from evidence with the files in about fifteen minutes. Wu always looked pleased to see him: maybe DeMarcos had a point about Sergeants hero-worshipping harder commanders, after all. Not that he was a commander, or even Captain ―yet.

"Where do these need to go?" Wu asked, stacking them.

"Gresham. Burkhardt and Ver… Fverk… fver-g-"

"Fver-gkay-er." Wu chuckled. "It took me 12 tries to say it to his satisfaction. Though I'm not sure how attempt 12 was so radically different from attempts 2, 3, 6, 9… you get the idea. There was an edict last year banning the use of his surname. I think even the perps call him Jan."

"Very wise." Renard leant back in his seat and stretched.

"So, what news from Portland?"

"Very little," Sean admitted. "I was there long enough for DeMarcos to tell me the value of cheerleading sergeants, and then sent back."

"Cheerleading sergeants are valuable?" Wu pondered this for a split second before launching into a compact but lively pom-pom routine. "TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT! WHO SHALL WE INCARCERATE?"

Sean blinked, startled by the enthusiasm, and Wu's face fell.

"Was that a little much?"

"Just a little… early."

"I get it. No cheer-leading before coffee. I'll ah… get the rest of those boxes."

"Thank you." Sean waited for Wu to disappear before allowing his chuckle to release into the back of his hand. A strange guy, but one to keep an eye on. No brain-mouth filter, but very quick. And he kept his guys well in check: the beat cops respected him.

The other guys from white collar started filing into the squad room, looking weary and disgruntled. It was wearying having to coax along detectives who made it so obvious with their every movement that they'd rather be somewhere else, even if they were very good at their jobs, and courteous to him. He stared out the window to distract himself from the expressions of protracted-case misery on their faces. Should he forget being a cop on this one? Just hand Berlingo straight to Kessler and be done with it? Or see how Nick dealt with it as a straightforward cop? He knew very little about the Grimm's nephew, doing no more over the years since he'd passed out from the academy than keep a vague eye on where he was… just in case Kessler went rogue. He couldn't exactly bluff a threat to Nick's safety if he didn't even know where he was stationed. But he was curious to see how Nick operated ― what kind of a man he'd turned into.

Still: there had to be a time limit. He couldn't let more girls turn up assaulted or dead while he satisfied his curiosity. At least Nick had Jan working with him. The Dutch Giant had a reputation for being by-the-book and a little overprotective. Nick couldn't get into too much trouble.

**X x X**

Nick grabbed his Macchiato and Muffin at Starbucks, and a copy of the Portland Post from a vendor, then headed back to his desk to carry on his make-and-model search. His printouts were spread out next to his picture of the back of the car. The exact spec, he couldn't remember, and he was still embarrassed about not making more of an effort with the plates, but he'd noted the shape and a couple of specific identifying details, like the v-shaped dent in the exhaust at the bottom; a circular sticker in the rear window, bottom left, with a blocky inner motif and blue circle around the outside. If they didn't have any luck with 'Jane Adamson' at Treeview, he might go car-park stalking around the official buildings. See if he found the vehicle that had taken off the previous night.

Jan had arrived while he was away and gave him a friendly wave. "Morning, Nick. You were in early."

"I'm doing what I can with the car, since we don't have much else to go with."

"It's very diligent of you. Thanks."

Nick glanced over, but Jan's face was as open as ever while he pored through his paper, his feet up on the desk. He must stop looking for sarcasm in everything. He'd only ever heard 'thanks' from Wu while in uniform. Well… Whelan _had_ said thanks from time to time, but Nick had to put himself through a one-man training academy to recognise 'um thanks' among his range of grunts. Jan looked tired, but seemed a lot brighter this morning.

"How are you feeling, anyway? Sleep alright?"

"Much more sanguine, thank you. But I got very, very little sleep. I was trying to track down Big Phoebe until three."

Nick frowned. "I'm telling Wu. Did you drive?"

"Don't tell Wu! I'll get no peace. But no, I didn't drive. I haunted some of her haunts on foot."

"Find her?"

"Sadly not. But then I spent a couple of exhausting but productive hours with Freebie."

Nick snickered into his coffee.

"A couple of hours on the _phone_, Nick. Filthy rookie. Anyway, Big called her - firstly to say that she's never talking to me again, because it's just too dangerous... yes, yes….I know how you feel about that. Secondly, Big heard at least some of Stern's half of his phone conversation with Audi-guy while she was stuck in the boot of the caddy."

"While they were en route?"

Jan nodded. "Stern was yelling that he didn't care what nearly happened when Audi-guy was working back at the Mayor's office, and that he still expected his $800 per girl for 'the pool'."

Nick felt vaguely ill. All this told them was that Audi-Guy was in an influential role and appeared to be 'collecting' girls to share with others. Even if they got him, they still had others to bring down. "So, all we can do for now to tick the mayor's office off our list of places he might be working?"

"I know, Nick. It's a grim situation. But… the Mayor's office is a good place to cross off our list. They're not good to tangle with." Jan picked his paper back up. "I'm just going through local politics. The first press conference, we're turning up with eyes peeled for shifty behaviour."

It was way too early to call Treeview to fix a visiting time, so Nick swept his Audi pictures to one side and decided to focus on what that rear window sticker on the Audi looked like. He bent over a clean sheet of paper and started drawing with his eyes closed. It made for a messy first draft, but it was the best way to empty his memory out and get the basic shapes down. Then, on the other half of the sheet, he drew it neater, using the brain-dump version to trigger a clearer memory of the block outline shape in the middle of the circle. Jan might recognise it. He walked round his partner's side of the desk to see what had him reading so keenly, and his eyes caught on page 6's sub-lead: "DA's office goes to war on public officials mixing business with service."

Next to the article, a picture of the Assistant DA, clustered by four people behind. The guy probably didn't even go to the can alone. They'd clearly been caught by the press coming out of the car park. A quick glance at the four people behind dismissed them all as suspects: two were too skinny, two too female. But he did notice, behind the entourage, that the DA's office had a _lot_ of black cars. He squinted over Jan's shoulder, leaning on him to get a good look.

Jan sighed. "Nick, I know that newspapers are always more fascinating when someone else is reading them, but that's a little... distracting."

Nick ducked under Jan's elbow to get closer to the paper, forcing his partner to widen his grip on the edges to accommodate his sudden, crowding appearance between his arms.

"Nick! You've got your own paper _over there_!"

"This is nearer." Nick held up his picture of the window sticker doodle. "Do you know what this is?"

Jan sighed from behind. "Yes. It looks a lot like a press parking sticker."

He pointed at the rear window of one of the black cars in the picture. "Like one of those?"

"There was one of those on the Audi? Nick… you've just narrowed things down _enormously_."

"Morning gents!" Captain Wilson swept into her office and hung up her coat, then swept back, even without the coat. As they chorused their 'morning Ma'am's, she looked between them dubiously. "I'm sure you'll tell me why you're cuddling behind a copy of the Portland Post."

"We're sharing the paper," Jan explained.

"Of course you must, because there's only one copy in Portland." She picked up Nick's and waved it in sarcastic surprise. "Goodness me, a spare. How lucky."

"I did make that observation," Jan said archly, and Nick pinged out from under his raised arm as quickly as decorum would allow. "However, aside from a certain _imperviousness to social cues_, Nick also has a pair of eagle eyes. We're a lot closer to finding out who this second man is."

The Captain looked at Jan in interest. Nick waited with an internal sigh for him to summarise everything 'they' had found, but Jan gazed at him expectantly.

"Well come on, Nick. You weren't that shy a minute ago."

Delighted at not having his 'reveal' stolen, Nick set out were they were with things. The Captain nodded at intervals, her arms folded, and then told him to do what he was going to do anyway, which was to visit the car park at the DA's office and take all the press cars' plate numbers.

"It's a little undignified, I'm afraid," Wilson apologised. "Under different circumstances, you would just march into reception and request that information, but―"

"―But there are no 'suspects' at the DA's office. I get it."

She smiled at him. "Good. One word of caution ―don't get too excited just yet. Most corporate services people ―including the press agents ― work with fleet cars, and they tend to share them. So there's still a little way to go to pin down the driver, but… good job. Really."

Nick felt the love as she returned to her office, but felt a little disheartened in the same moment. "Damn. Fleet cars. I'd forgotten about that."

"_She's_ forgotten the 'brand' factor," Jan said, turning what looked like a string bracelet round in his fingers. "Hand me your car picture?"

Nick did, watching in fascination as Jan did extremely complicated things with the string with the fingers of one hand while he mused. It wasn't so much a cat's cradle he was making, as a cat's bunk-bed.

"Bloody hell, Nick. You're a _good_ artist…. Ok, I think I can pin down the model. There are only a couple with that trunk shape. If this is a 'fleet car', then it's only for a handful of senior execs. It's a beautiful, expensive ride, Nick. It's for spin doctors, not wordsmiths. Go on over, I'll catch you up."

"See you there!" Nick grabbed his jacket and bounded from the building, grabbing a cab over to the DA's as his car was making some suspicious noises. For the first five minutes of the ride, he felt vaguely glowy. Then suddenly remembered he was supposed to have called Lieutenant Renard. Crap. He snatched his cell out and called Portland, only to find Renard had gone back to West Side. Re-dialling, he expected a happy Wu. Wrong.

"What's up? I thought you'd be working on your schemes for Team Renard?"

"DOOMED. How's our miffed midwife this morning?"

Nick chuckled. "He's fine. C'mon what's up?"

"Nick, 'Doomed' is usually a hint to change the fricking subject. But… gnnn... Ok. I'm telling you, I've set back Team Renard recruitment by like… five months. I was so overwhelmed by the freedom of not being at Portland that I made an ass of myself. Renard made some conversation _all by himself_, lulling me into a false sense of informal security, so I tried a line and he looked at me like I'd sprouted whiskers or something. "

Nick tried to sound grave. "I'm not sure _I'd _cope if you sprung whiskers mid-conversation. But I don't think that means that the great love affair has necessarily gone cold. He could just have a lot of stuff on his mind."

Wu sniffed indignantly. "Whatever. What can I do for you?"

"I was hoping to speak to him, actually. Captain Wilson asked me to call him this morning."

"You'll have to wait for him to get back ― the white collar boys have moved on an audit lead so he rushed off with them. He was probably just letting you know about case boxes coming your way. He had me retrieve them for you. They're being driven over to Gresham in a few minutes."

"Hang in there, buddy. Just tell him I returned his call, ok?"

Nick pocketed his cell and paid the cabbie, then trotted into the 1890s building. A badge flash at reception and wide-eyed story that someone was probably using and abusing their parking facilities got him into the internal areas of the garage and he spent about ten minutes zipping around, taking plate numbers as well as makes and models where he recognised them, but he didn't see the Audi. At least not one with a bent exhaust _and_ a press sticker. Damn. So he walked through the open section of the car park up to a café and sat outside with a coffee while waiting for Jan.

There was drama on the next table. A red-eyed, mousy kind of girl sat bolt upright, trying to collect herself as her male companion leant over the table, talking quietly to her, his hand over hers.

"But what are they doing?" the girl almost spat, "I moved offices and upheaved everything to get _away_ from that guy!"

"Nothing's going to happen, Edie. I'm sitting yards away from him. I'm not letting him near your desk. I promise."

"Why did they move that creep? On promotion? He's in the press team, he belongs downstairs!"

Nick heard the guy sigh quietly. He couldn't help tuning in, but he didn't want to stare rudely so continued to stare over at the DA's carpark exit.

"Edie, I don't think this is promotion. Someone reported a suspicion that he's working on his private business in office time. He's been moved into open plan to make it difficult for him to operate."

"I don't care about any of that corporate crap! I _know_ it was him that tried to grab me last year. I _know_ it! It was bad enough when he came over from the Mayor's office, but I was doing ok while he was in a completely different part of the building. Personnel know about this – why the hell would they move him so close to me? Or doesn't it matter that some PA got chased down an alley?"

"Of course it matters!"

"It might to you, but…"

Nick was properly tuned in now. Way too many links with what he was dealing with. He pondered how he would gently enter their conversation and flicked a quick glance over at them. The girl had the look of someone with a petite build, small wrists, narrow shoulders, quite short, but who had stacked on a lot of stress weight. The girl wasn't 'big', by any means: probably no bigger than a size 12. But she was still dressing a denial size smaller than she was, and, as he tried to drop his gaze so he wasn't staring at them directly, he saw the tell-tale stretch marks just above her knees, showing through her tights where her skirt was all bunched up.

Well, he knew how stress-eating felt. After his parents had died he went a little crazy for a while and it took a self-imposed boot camp and the formation of a couple of proper friendships to get him back on an even keel and keep him there.

"Did you want something, buddy?" the guy asked sharply, and Nick looked back up with a guilty start, realising he was still staring at the girl's legs. He got his badge out.

"Sorry. I'm a detective with Special Victims at GPD. I kind of automatically tune into the kind of conversation you're having. Did you ever report the guy that chased you?"

She stared miserably down at the tablecloth. "Almost. I got talked out of it by friends. They thought I shouldn't rock the boat unless I could prove it was him."

Nick nodded. That was understandable. "And you first saw him on your floor… just now?"

"Yeah. Well, a little while ago. I've kind of been hiding out here while I figure out what to do."

"Did this guy see you?"

"I-I don't think so. Not yet."

That was something at least, Nick figured. She might at least have the chance to move again before he noticed her, unless she was prepared to rock the boat, this time. "What's his name?"

"Erneste Berlingo," the guy answered for her, his face set with anger. "He's the biggest shit walking."

Nick straightened in his seat, remembering Freebie's summary of Stern's conversation with Audi-Guy: he'd been working at the mayor's office… "Can you tell me exactly _when_ you were― ma'am, are you ok?"

She was staring wide-eyed past him to the front of the building, wide-eyed, then ducked her face down into her hands. Nick turned and looked. The DA was trotting down the steps in the company of a group of guys who split up across three cars. One crossed over the street to his vehicle, apparently driving alone. Nick's gaze flicked between lone driver and the girl, and he put his hand on her shoulder, thumbing back over his.

"Is that him?"

She nodded vigorously and Nick sprinted across the road on the green light, up the sidewalk, and nearly caught up with the Audi as it was pulling out, but not quite. It had the press sticker and the dented exhaust. But it had already joined traffic before he was close enough to rap on the window. Damn. But at least he had ID and a plate number, now. He jogged back to the café table and was pulling his jacket off the back of his chair when Jan pulled up. Nick brought Jan up to speed and Jan checked the plate number against the one he had on a scrap of paper in his wallet.

"Good work, Nick. That's excellent. Ok, so we know who he is. Would you excuse us one moment?" This was directed at the pair outside the café, as Jan led him to one side, dropping his voice and looking serious. "Do you think Berlingo saw you chasing his car?"

Nick tried to remember. "I don't think so. The closest I got was probably in his blind spot anyway. Why?"

"Because we need to make quite a few collaborative calls before we can make this collar, and it's easier to catch up with him if he's still following the same routine, believing himself to be undetected."

Shit. Nick hadn't thought about that, but then, he needed to get close enough to the car to check that the office girl's alley-grabber and their Audi-guy were one and the same. Still, he felt hesitant. "I don't _think_ he realised anything was up. He didn't pull out in a hurry, at least."

"That's good." Jan pulled out his cell. "I'll update our Captain. Nick, try to persuade her to make a retrospective statement about last year's assault, and see if you can get the name of this private business he's supposedly running. They might have physical premises that he goes to visit."

As Jan wandered off round the corner to make the private call, Nick went back to the mousy girl and her hand-holding friend. Because he was a 'friend'. According to the girl's body language. Nick saw in the guy's face a vague sense of peace to be the one next to her when she was upset, being leant on, and he clearly wanted to be a great deal more than her friend. Nick hoped that secret feelings were lurking on both sides and that they'd work that out between them, at some stage. They seemed to care about each other a great deal.

Unfortunately, she didn't care a great deal about helping him with bringing Berlingo down, because her life was stressful enough and she didn't trust those 'asswipes' upstairs to keep a decent space between them if the charges didn't stick. She would give a statement ― after he was arrested. Not before. Her guy-buddy backed her up, to his disappointment, but no surprise. Naturally he would say whatever made him supportive to his would-be-girlfriend, right now.

As much as Nick grasped all the emotional dynamics in this, he struggled to keep himself from pacing with frustration as he explained that Berlingo may not go down _without_ her statement.

"Look," she snapped finally, suddenly standing up all tall after he'd tried to approach the appeal from a third angle, "I came running out the personnel director's office this morning because he wouldn't move me away from Berlingo's floor. It's only a matter of time before he sees me, and he _will_ recognise me."

"We can protect you―" Nick started, but she just cut him off with a bitter laugh.

"How? You going to sit next to me at work and help with the diary management? I can't see it. And even if you did, you're hardly bodyguard material, are you?"

"Edie…" her friend soothed, looking embarrassed. "He's trying to help us, here."

Nick appreciated the gesture, but…

"What's wrong?" Jan had finished with his call and rejoined them, standing over with his hands propped on his hips.

"I was just trying to convince Miss Covey that the key to returning to work unafraid is to give us a statement about Erneste Berlingo's attack on her."

Jan nodded. "He's right. Why are you unconvinced?"

"Because he's getting away with so much stuff! Why the hell should I believe that you're going to get him now?"

"Well, we're not, without your statement."

His bluntness seemed to shake her. Nick saw her stare at the floor wretchedly and wondered how Jan was going to break through the resistance. But then, he must have done this a thousand times before.

"Look, this is a part of your life you didn't want back. Nick and I both realise this. But here it is, and you need to deal with it ― with help, of course. The starting point is helping us to arrest him. Presumably you're concerned about him being bailed and returning to work?"

She nodded rapidly.

"I very, very much doubt that'll happen, as I'm sure Nick has explained. But as a precaution, we can talk to your bosses and put you on protective suspension as a witness. You'll still be paid but will stay away from the premises until charges are successfully brought. Does that change your mind?"

Nick watched Edie glance from him to her guy-friend, and up to Jan, who dropped his hands lightly on her shoulders. She peered way, way up at him, intrigued.

"What do you say, Edie?"

She stared for a long time, then nodded. "Alright."

A squad car arrived a few minutes later to take them back to Gresham, and Nick got in with them while Jan went into the offices to lay down the law with the personnel director. He had mixed feelings as they travelled silently back to the precinct. He was happy that they were on the verge of bringing down this guy on day two of the investigation, and happy that he had a lot to do with that. But as for witness encouragement… clearly he had a lot to learn. From now on, he knew that he could reassure witnesses that their absence from work would be covered and would start out with that, but couldn't help feeling that what really tipped the balance for Edie was that 'slightly unfair advantage' that Jan had admitted to some weeks back ― his sheer size. There was no getting away from it: Jan just looked like he was built to protect people and he got more trust for it.

He kept his sigh to himself as they pulled into Gresham. He could be as quick and smart as he liked and learn all the tricks of the trade, but it wasn't like he could learn to become a giant. He'd have to build his own niche, somehow. Suppressing his gloomy thoughts, he gave them an encouraging smile and led them up to an interview room.

**X x X**

So Wilson had hauled the Assistant DA over the coals ― politely, of course ― but they'd come down to stalemate: she was absolutely not prepared to let them go in on a diplomatic basis, but neither was she giving up on the possibility of an arrest warrant being granted. The compromise was that he and Nick were to wait outside the Hampton Grill and wait for news from the DA.

Even with the aircon in the Toyota turned up high, neither of them were particularly comfortable in the Kevlar under their shirts. Nick wore Jan's old jacket ― the standard issue he'd been supplied with (and which stopped short of his belly button) but which he hadn't returned to the armoury. This was not supposed to be a 'kevlar mission', but looking through the window of the Hampton Grill opposite, the arguments were escalating and the guys round the table seemed to be shifting in some insane Mexican wave pattern ― all but one, in his early thirties or so, who appeared to be waiting for the others to get their shit together. Berlingo, identifiable by having no jacket on, appeared to be getting the hard end of a heated discussion.

Jan fished his woollen bracelet out from his shirt pocket and fiddled it into a star shape between his fingers. The moment the little girl had given it to him still made him smile: it was shoved shyly on the edge of his desk before she was towed off home by her desperately relieved parents. Pleated in orange, pink and blue, it was wide enough to be a Siegbarste's belt, but it was a nice, tangible reminder of why he did the job.

"Do you always play with string while you're thinking?"

Jan shoved it back in his pocket, pinkening. "Yes."

"Ok. That's only a tiny bit strange, I guess." Nick picked absently at the threads coming out the top of his denim cuff with a hypocrisy that made Jan roll his eyes.

"Each to his own, Nick."

"I still don't know why we're not storming straight in on arrest basis, with back-up," Nick muttered. Doesn't wide-spread assault and domestic girl-trafficking trump income fraud, as crimes go?"

"In life-or-death terms, maybe," Jan agreed. "But don't say that in front of Renard's boys if you want to keep your insides inside. They've been working 14-hour days towards a big bust for months and if they get it right, they're reclaiming the city millions and _millions _of dollars. That's a lot of extra cops on the streets, schools saved from closure…"

Nick nodded in recognition. "So there's a bigger picture."

"There are lots of big pictures. We can see one of them. White collar can see another. The tricky part for us is explaining that to the victim of a guy we can't arrest."

"Like Abi?" Nick shot him a sideways look and sighed slightly. "I guess this is the part of the job you were trying to warn me about."

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For getting it." Jan smiled, but didn't add to that. Thank you for being non-typical and having a better grasp on what is sensible or possible than my last rookie, was how he felt, but it didn't end well with Simon and he had no intention of scaring Nick off on day two of the job, particularly as he was definitely one of the most observant people he'd ever worked with. He jerked his head over at the scene in the window of the Hampton Grill. "What do you see?"

"Ah… Berlingo in appeasing mode. I think the oldest guy is armed, he's got a bunch box pushing out his left jacket pocket, and the youngest one is on cold stare duty. He's quiet, but he's not shy, you know? He's like a cobra biding his time."

Jan stared sideways at Nick until he'd convinced himself it was nothing more than a spectacularly scary analogy, then settled back in his seat again. They sat quietly for a few minutes while Jan's phone failed to ring with any updates. Jan thought he heard yelling from somewhere and eased his window down a little to try to get some directional focus. The sound died out almost as soon as he'd convinced himself that he'd heard it.

"Ah… Jan… what happens if the DA says that we can only go in on a person-of-interest basis?"

"Then we're not going," Jan said firmly. "We come up with some kind of plan B, and we back off."

"Why?"

"Because he saw us last night. There's no question of us taking him down to the precinct to 'help us with our enquiries'."

"So why am I wearing Kevlar _under_ my shirt? I thought we were doing that to be discreet?"

"If you look like you're expecting trouble, you're more likely to get it. Besides, if you get hit, you can make a point of dropping at an angle that conceals the lack of blood and then ping back to life when they're not expecting it. And once you've got your breath back, of course."

"Right," Nick said uncertainly. But then appeared to buck up all of a sudden. "I've been thinking. He'd recognise _you_ because you were last seen gravel-wrestling a Rottweiler. But my build is slightly more… anonymous than yours―"

"No, Nick."

"I don't think he ever saw my face because we were both in shadow, and I can look pretty unthreatening when I need to―"

"Noooo."

Nick shot him an example innocent expression, all wide-eyed and guileless, which wasn't reassuring in the slightest because of the 'ta da!' grin he gave immediately afterwards. "See?"

"No!"

"So maybe I tootle in, get a table for lunch, then 'rescue' Berlingo from his angry 'buddies' and bring him back to the car?"

Jan gaped. "Nick! How are my multiple NOs passing you by?"

"I thought it was a good strategy!"

"It _would_ be if there were only two of them, Berlingo included, and neither were armed. You are not 'tootling' in there, and that is final!"

Nick looked dead ahead, but gave an annoyed little eyebrow bounce which Jan privately thought was hilarious. "Is this about me being a rookie?"

"To a large extent, yes. I'm responsible for you while you're on probation."

"Jan… I'm twenty-seven. I'm not a kid."

Jan butted his head against the back of his car seat. "And twenty-seven's a good age, but twenty-eight is even better. Look, more than anything else, it's about you being my partner. I've enjoyed being your partner, so far, and would like our little team to last more than two days!"

"Is there some kind of history you're not tell― whoa!"

Jan followed Nick's gaze back over to the restaurant where the argument had turned into a stand-up row. Talk about 'saved by the bell'. Yes, there was history ― astute kid ― and he wasn't ready to go into it right now. The numbers inside the restaurant had decreased a little: the 'quiet guy' was storming off.

"Jan ― got an idea. He's getting his car keys out, but still striding like his car's a little distance away. There's a bus coming. If I run after it, I can probably get his plates without drawing 'cop' attention."

Good plan. Jan nodded vigorously. This kind of initiative was welcome. "Go, and come straight back!"

**X x X**

After a half-hour of waiting, Helen was ready to take some arms and legs off. The DA wasn't answering, as he was in an important meeting. The White Collar team appeared to have declared themselves out of the office, so she tried Sean Renard. It was a huge favour to ask, but he would be in the best position to make a balanced judgement about how much would be at risk if Berlingo were publically arrested and seemed to have a smooth relationship with the DA.

She clutched her phone hard enough to make the plastic creak and exhaled with relief as Sean picked up on the fifth ring.

"Ma'am, I'm in the middle of something a little delicate here, we're nearly done―"

"Sean, _thank you_ for picking up. I know you're up to your eyes wrapping up your bust, but this is kind of urgent. You've got Erneste Berlingo under audit, haven't you? Well, we've got him for murder, attempted murder, and at least two counts of attempted abduction, or we would do if―"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Give me one moment…"

At the other end of the line, she heard a door closing, shuffling down the corridor, and when Sean came back on the line, his voice was dipped, his tone incredulous. "How the hell did they pin down Berlingo so fast?"

Helen ran through the evidence, the summary of the previous night's assault, the acquisition of a testimony from Miss Covey, and tried not to spit too angrily when explaining that she'd still not had permission to move from the ADA because of the White Collar audit.

"Where are they?" Sean asked suddenly.

"The Hampton Grill ― waiting outside, but they've been expressly told not to move until they have the word to arrest."

"Great. I'd like to join them. See you there as back-up?"

She blinked, pleased but startled. "You sure? What about―"

"We've made the key arrests, pending warrants for the others. Berlingo's small fry compared to some of the guys we've been watching. Let's go get him."

Helen breathed a sigh of relief as he clicked off, pausing only to holster her Glock, update Franco, and shut up her office before racing for her Merc in the outdoor carpark. She pulled out into traffic, two squad cars in pursuit.

**X x X**

Having completed his irate bus-missing pedestrian display, Nick stomped past the grill on the way back to the car, checking out the scene inside through the reflection of the cars parked along the sidewalk. Still some shouting going on while the place was being set up for lunch. The decor was cheesy - exaggerated olde-worlde English country pub style, dragged into the 21st century with random bowls of glass pebbles scattered here and there. And an even more random cartwheel on the far wall, by the kitchen swing doors.

In the side window of a particularly big jeep he caught a flicker of activity in the alley - a waist-jacketed guy (waiter?) hauling a monochrome girl (waitress?) indoors by the upper arm while she struggled angrily. He snapped a brisk sideways look, but saw nothing but brick wall and a line of garbage bins. Had he seen that, or not?

Dammit, he knew what he saw. Trying to stay casual, Nick shoved his hands in his pockets and trotted across the road to Jan's Toyota, freezing at the doorway as he caught a second flurry of movement ― this time from above the restaurant. He stared at the first floor windows but could see nothing but sun. Blinking big white rectangles out of his eyes, he clambered back into the Jeep and recited the plate number to Jan, who was ready with his notebook.

"Jan, I've got a bad feeling."

"You as well? What's your feeling?"

Nick took a deep breath. "It's probably just corner-of-eye syndrome, but I'm sure I saw a girl being snatched into their kitchens. Pulled hard ― not like she'd overstayed a smoke break or something."

"Alright." Jan picked up the radio, requested back-up and called in a false imprisonment. They gave a five minute ETA on two squad cars from Gresham and Portland.

Nick listened, stunned at the instant display of trust. "Won't they tear you a new one if we're wrong?"

"Yes. But I don't care, and I don't think we're wrong. I've been hearing yelling, but couldn't pin down the source." Jan looked over seriously. "Alright, here's the plan. We're going in there to talk to 'the boss'. We saw a girl being dragged into his building and we're concerned. No more."

"Whooo... okay. So no action to be taken that's directly linked to Berlingo?"

"Technically, no, but I'm fully expecting him to run, at which point the whole polite enquiry versus full arrest distinction becomes academic anyway―"

Nick caught that window flurry again and lunged forward in his seat as he stared up, flapping sideways at Jan and pointing upwards. "First floor, third pane to the left. See?"

"Um….no….I'm afraid…"

A whisper of cloud passed over the sun, blocking the reflection and showing a girl hammering at the window with something, which then shattered outwards.

"Right, _now_ I'm seeing." Jan leapt out the car, as did Nick, and they jogged through gaps in the traffic to the central reservation on Charleston Road while Berlingo and the two remaining heavies shared a frozen stare upwards to the restaurant ceiling and then at each other.

"Nick, take the kitchen door, see if there's a back passage going upstairs. I'll go in through the front."

Nick felt his gut tightening. Jan versus three of them? Yeah, he was big, but they were armed. And there was a lot of him not covered in Kevlar.

He shook his head vigorously. "Uh-uh. I'm coming with you. If we can handle Berlingo and co between us, the girls will still be upstairs to help when we're done."

Jan sighed down at him, but the distant sounds of squad sirens seemed to decide him. "Alright, Nick. But follow me in, let me do the talking, and _keep them in front of you_. Remember what the file said about their attack style? If they're part of the same group, they're rear grabbers."

"Ok." Nick fell in behind Jan, wondering whether he _was_ being irrationally protected, or whether he was being bratty and trying over-reach himself. He couldn't decide and didn't have time to dwell on it, anyway. That tightening in his gut grew stronger as he approached the Grill in Jan's wake. He could smell something weird in the air. Something musty. His Glock was holstered at the small of his back for discretion, and he reached back to put his hand on the butt. The feel of it in his palm wasn't quite so reassuring as usual.

Berlingo had disappeared inside, presumably to check on the noise upstairs. A waitress came to the glass door of the main restaurant and pulled an apologetic face up at Jan as the other two suits yammered at her in the background. "Not open yet!"

He smiled down at her and flashed his badge. "We won't be long."

Squeezing her eyes shut against supposedly-silent abuse from behind, she seemed to make a decision and hastily unbolted the door, letting them in. Jan marched in in a fairly friendly way and pointed up to the top floor through the ceiling.

"You have a broken window up there."

"We are aware," the older guy snapped. "Thanks for pointing it out."

"You also have a number of girls screaming for help through that window, so you'll lead us upstairs so we can see what's going on, please." Polite, but uncompromising. Copying Jan's unhurried approach, Nick circled silently round quite a few of the tables and got behind them, trapping them between him and Jan.

"Come on, our boys with badges are on their way. There's no point in feigning innocence right now. Let's get the girls down to safety before it all gets bloody." Jan flashed them a brilliant grin that made them take a rapid couple of steps back, almost running themselves into Nick.

Nick kept half an eye behind him. Where was Berl―?

"NICK! BEHIND!"

He felt a crushing force wrapping around him which thankfully compressed over his upper arms rather than his ribs. He struggled, trying to pull his arms free, but he may as well have tried to get his foot out of a bear trap by pulling it through spikes. It wasn't going to happen. One of the two guys between him and Jan spun and produced his piece, pointing it right towards his face while he was still trying to break free, but was downed by Jan who lifted a foot and almost casually kicked him forward with a blow to the back of the head. He hit the corner of a table and slithered down to the ceramic tiling. That was one bad guy down. The other had taken advantage of the moment of distraction to get behind Jan and try to pin him. He wasn't doing well.

Berlingo appeared intent on pulling him backwards, so Nick figured that the only thing to do was use momentum against him. As he was bashed against a chair in reverse, he leapt up onto the cushion then threw himself backwards, landing on Berlingo and driving the wind from his lungs, and probably, the feeling from his privates. The grip around him collapsed, and Nick flipped over, grabbing the guy's flailing wrists and cuffing them around the bottom strut of a heavy dining chair. If the guy planned to flee, he'd have to take the chair with him.

He turned to see Jan spread his arms, break his assailant's grip, then spin ridiculously fast to face him, gripping his collar. He flipped the man face-down on the nearest table and cuffed him, first to himself, and then ― like Nick ― to a spectacularly inconvenient part of the nearest dining chair.

Nick flashed Jan a grin of relief that was very short lived. The waiter guy he'd seen earlier trotted out from the kitchen, clearly unaware that anything was amiss, took one look at Jan with his gun out and badge on belt, then pelted back into the kitchen, making the swing-doors scream wildly on their hinges. Jan lunged after him, and then Nick heard a yell of surprised pain followed clanging and crashing. Really, _really_ loud, endless crashing of metal on metal, and metal on stone, that just seemed to last an eternity, as if a giant had taken a bunch of metal garbage lids and played a game to see how much noise he could make by spinning them on a metal surface until they stilled.

Nick followed Jan into the kitchen and saw him down on his knees among at least ten huge ornamental copper pans (which _had_ been hanging from the ceiling), clutching the right side of his face, looking utterly confused and swearing in alternate Dutch and English.

"Fuck – Jan? You alright?"

Jan's eyes rolled alarmingly but he pointed to the kitchen back door with his 'spare' hand. "F'llow 'm!"

Nick took off in the direction of receding footfalls, dimly aware of one last, deafening crash behind him. No yell, though. Hopefully that was a good sign.

: : : : :

Sean ditched his coat in his car, nodded at Wilson as she leapt out of her Merc on the far side of the road, and tore off after Nick and the heavy-set Lausenschlange he was chasing. The man wasn't particularly fast but he had a very good head-start which Sean noticed with approval that Nick was rapidly demolishing. Sean closed the gap between him and them, relying on a combination of a convenient Hexenbiest failure to produce any lactic acid, and simple longer leg-length. Waist-jacketed guy dived off around the corner, Nick followed ― mere yards behind now ― and then there came a crash and a yell to 'get the fuck off'.

That was more in keeping with Kessler communication style, Sean mused, and caught up in time to see Nick's attacker pulling him backwards down the alley. Nick's face darkened as he tried to loosen the guy's grip, but he was too tall to head-butt backwards, and kept too wide a stance behind for Nick to ram his instep down his ankles. Sean dipped into the shadow of the side of the wall.

A noisy grunt reached his ears ― not Nick's ― and he got close enough to see the kid jump, get his hands round his knees and cannon-ball his entire weight down onto the Lausenschlange's left ankle. Nick had managed to push the guy backwards into the wall before dropping, so there was nowhere for him to go. The snap probably could've been heard from the street if it hadn't been for the covering scream of pain and rage. Turning abruptly, Nick crouched opposite, stretching his arms out and gripping his Glock as steadily as his vibrating hands could manage. Sean bent down and got the perp into zip-tie cuffs, enabling Nick to stand down and get his breath.

"We'll send an ambulance back for him," he said mildly, helping Nick up. Nick limped with him down Charleston road, desperately trying to ignore his badly bruised butt. "Did you get Berlingo?"

Nick nodded shakily. "In the restaurant. Out cold, but fit to stand trial."

Sean smiled to himself as they headed back to the Grill. If he hadn't seen Nick's shock reaction at his first detective arrest, he wouldn't have known he was a rookie. But between the quick thinking, speed and reflexes, it looked more than biologically likely that he was growing into his Grimm. He exhaled wistfully. At the moment, Nick was clearly self-sufficient, but he also lacked menace. Sean would quite like to see him keep things that way a little while longer.

: : : : :

Seeing Sean sprint after Nick, Helen darted through the restaurant, following the sound of hubbub in the kitchen. She pushed through the swing doors and stared for a moment. The floor was covered in dented copper pans, plaster, and a hook-lined pole hung off the ceiling at about 45°. Two of the chefs were trying to get it down safely, but their treading room was limited by the mess and cluster of waitresses surrounding the very familiar legs sprawled out over the floor. It wasn't too hard to work out what'd happened. Helen sighed inwardly and walked around to Jan's head, kneeling down, having to flash her badge at the waitresses to get them to make room.

God he was a mess: bleeding right eyebrow and lip (both being dabbed industriously), blackened right eye, and bruised collar-bone. This was easy to spot ― like the complete lack of injury on the rest of him from chest down ― because the girls appeared to have opened his shirt down to the waist. For no discernible medical reason. Muttering darkly about sexual harassment, she pulled his shirt back together again and did up a couple of buttons. He stirred, tipping his face left, and she saw the inch-thick bruise line leading from the back of his ear down to his neck. She slipped her hands round the back of his head to steady it and he flinched.

Helen caught the eye of the waitress on lip-dabbing duty. "Have you called 911?"

"Of course!" The girl had an Eastern European accent and sounded extremely affronted.

"Good. What happened?"

"Andre ran away through the kitchen and two men chased him. The smaller man is still going after Andre, but this one hit _all_ the pans and went 'clang'."

"Jan went 'clang'?" Helen sighed a little as he groaned distantly, screwing his face up. "And this knocked him out?"

"Oh no, this only makes him confused, cross and woozy. No, he was getting up from his knees and ready to chase when the skillet falls, like this― HI-_YAH_!" the girl demonstrated a vicious karate chop across the back of the neck and shoulders, "and then he drops into long, flat jelly."

Helen saw the skillet ― which must weigh the best part of 20lb ― looked at where it'd hit him and it made no sense that he was on his back. It would've driven him back onto his knees and then pitched him forward. "Did you move him?"

The silence as the waitresses exchanged mutually guilty stares was confirmation enough. Seething internally, she gently strengthened her grip round the back of his head, causing unhappy mumbling. One of the first-aid hopeless causes finally made herself useful by passing a pack of frozen pole beans wrapped in a teatowel, which Helen pressed against his neck. He did not find this soothing.

"GNNNNNNNNN!"

"Jan… can you hear me?"

"Mmmh."

"Can you wiggle your feet?" He did, after a long, sulky, groggy pause. He could move everything else on command, too, except his right arm. Which was understandable, given the shock his nerve had probably taken. "Can't move the fingers in that hand?"

"nn-nn."

She found his dogged attempt to sleep through her medical interrogations quite endearing. "Jan, could we graduate to syllables, do you think?"

He frowned and thought and struggled with this for a moment, then finally rumbled, "Yes…ma'am." He tugged his lids open for a couple of seconds to reveal crossed, bottle-green eyes. Bless him. They dropped shut immediately. He spent several minutes fidgeting in his sleep. Eventually she realised that he was trying to puff air up his face to get his hair out of his eyes. She raked it back for him.

"All tidy now," she murmured, suppressing a smile as this settled him immediately. _You big girl. _She shook his shoulder every minute or so to stop him from drifting off until the bus finally turned up. It took ten of them, including a rather tired Nick ― who'd just stumbled back into the kitchen ― to get Jan off the floor and onto the gurney.

**X x X**

Nick jogged up to neurology and earned himself a warm beam at the nurse's desk from Hayley when he asked for Jan's room. He passed the time of day with her, which she responded to cheerfully, but when he explained that the big sports bag contained clothes for Jan, the sun disappeared from her face and a wintry expression blew in. God only knew what that was about. He made his escape from Jekyll-and-Hyde Hayley and headed down the corridor, drawing level with Jan's room. He was still bare to the waist, as with yesterday's brief visit, but his various wires had been removed, which was great. And he was propped up with a ridiculous number of pillows. Nick felt it would be easier to raise the head-rest, but hey.

Jan was asleep, but had a visitor, so Nick hung back. The girl, in white shirt and loose-cut black jeans, had long blonde-brown hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, sat on the edge of the bed with her hand on Jan's far side. A girlfriend he hadn't heard about yet, maybe? He'd clearly come right at the end of her visit because she bent over and brushed a kiss across Jan's cheek before rising to her feet and creeping out.

Nick started in recognition as she passed him: Big Phoebe, looking tidy, dressed casual. She stopped and looked back in similar recognition, her face as hard as ever. He attempted a friendly smile, felt it going precisely nowhere, and was about to turn into Jan's room, when he felt the bruising grip of hands round his head and a slam-kiss on his cheekbone.

"Thank you, too," she barked, then strode off the corridor as if trying to out-walk this embarrassing display of not-quite-affection.

Nick stumbled in slightly, rubbing his cheek and feeling like he'd been attacked by an impulsive, one-shot wood-pecker. Aunt Marie used to kiss like that, until he got quick enough to duck.

"Hey, Nick," Jan murmured. "I see you got the Phoebe seal of approval?"

"It wasn't as gentle as your seal," Nick said. "I thought you were asleep?"

"It was slightly awkward. She thought I was asleep, made herself comfortable on the bed, then started unloading, because she thought I couldn't hear her. It got to… um… a point of self-disclosure where the only chivalrous thing to do was remain 'asleep'."

Nick grinned. "Useful unloading?"

"In parts. It turns out that Andre, the 'waiter' you leapt on yesterday, worked with the Phoebes' pimp, and they're hardly anguished to see the back of him. Or Berlingo."

"And the rest of it?"

Jan blushed. "Best kept to myself, I think." He drew the sheet up the bed self-consciously. "Speaking of which, I'm feeling a little exposed. I don't suppose you had the chance to―"

"―Spare clothes!" Nick pronounced and dumped the bag on the side of the bed, while fishing the world's tiniest pot of Nivea for Men from his pocket and clicking it down on the bedside table. Jan's eyes lit up comically, even as he struggled to unscrew the pot left-handedly.

"Nick, you're a hero among men."

"I found the biggest garment I possess, but I'll get some of your stuff if you give me your apartment keys." Nick got the bed's backrest up so he could sit properly and helped him into the navy blue long-sleeved teeshirt. He'd bought it a couple of years ago to wear over the top of other clothes if he ever got any painting done, but still remained very much a sketch-pad guy. The top was very fitted on Jan, but he looked relieved to have it on.

"I can't account for my apartment keys. My clothes seem to have been confiscated. I've tried appealing to Hayley, but it looks like I'm not getting them back until I'm actually discharged."

"I think Hayley might be the wrong person to ask to get you re-dressed," Nick observed blandly. "But seriously, you ok? When are they letting you go?"

"Tonight, hopefully. I'm starting to get pins and needles in my right fingers again, so sensation's returning. It looks like I'd just bruised the nerve."

"Just bruised a lot of things," he muttered. "You scared the crap out of me." Nick dropped into the seat next to the bed with a sigh. He'd thought Jan had just made dizzying contact with the ornamental pans. Returning to the kitchen to find his partner out cold and looking like he'd been worked over from the shoulders up... not nice, even if he was being very well looked after by lots and lots, and lots of people. He'd felt like a shit, going after the job rather than sticking with his partner.

"I'm sorry, Nick. I wasn't much use back there," Jan apologised, bizarrely. "Wilson said that you did great."

This was a surprise. "Really? Because I got the verbal equivalent version of the frustrated-matriarch shoulder-shake. Until I explained what we saw above the restaurant, and then she chilled a little."

"At least she only does the _verbal_ shoulder-shake now. She tried rattling sense into me once and cricked her neck, so she's stuck to tongue-lashing since then." Jan grimaced. "I think I preferred the shaking."

"She doesn't hold back does she?" Nick mused. "I guess size isn't everything."

"I never said it was. I said it gave me _some_ unfair advantages. But as you can see...it can also be an arse. Other things are more important."

"Like experience." Nick now saw Jan's conversation with Edie Covey in a slightly more generous light.

"It helps. But what I'd give to have your eye-sight..."

"Or your hearing," Nick chuckled. "I was going to ask if you were secretly a bat."

"Secretly a CAT?"

"No! Bat! like sonar hearing? Cats are cooler, but hey..." Nick chuckled. "Wait, how come you don't hear me right from a yard away but you can hear a chocolate wrapper crinkle from half a mile in a high wind?"

Jan relaxed back in bed a little. "I'm not that extreme. But... seriously, you did great, Nick. Been to see Abi Chester, yet? Give her the good news?"

"You ok with me doing that?"

"I think you've earned the right. Go on, go do the nicer part of this job. We'll debrief tomorrow."

"Thanks." Nick grinned, floating on big-brother approval and skipped down to his car.

It took him just a few minutes to get to Abi's. He rung her apartment bell and she buzzed him in with a warning that it would take her about five minutes to get to her inner door. He was upstairs before she got across her room, poor girl, but gazed down with interest at the little note on top of a stack of local papers left outside.

"Hey honey, Brianne will bring the next batch tomorrow. Call me if you need anything else. J xxx"

It was nice that she had people looking after her. He'd need to keep in touch a little while longer anyway, to help her while the courts technology team set up her video-link testimony. Her back injury was pretty bad and there was no way she'd be able to sit up all the way through proceedings. Eventually she got to the door and seemed to see in his face that it was good news before he even opened his mouth.

She gave him a watery smile. "You got him? Really?"

"Your friend doesn't need to bring any more papers. We got him yesterday morning."

"This is for you and your partner." She stepped in slowly for a hug. He wasn't quite sure what the hug-the-witness department policy was, but was happy to enjoy it until the finer procedural points were clarified for him. Abi's peck on the cheek was softer and longer-lasting than Big Phoebe's.

"I'll ah... pass that onto Jan verbally," he said with a grin.

Abi chuckled. "You do that. Seriously, thank him for me, too. He's sweet and all, but... you're always going to be the one that 'threw the trash out' for me."


	5. The trouble with Narcotics (part 1)

**Here's a third little story and... enter Hank Griffin! Anyone remember his severe facial hair from 'the hour of death'? I thought I'd have a little fun with his evolving look…**

**I hope you enjoy **** this one is a bit less about procedure and detective work than previous and more about getting to know the characters and how they got to know each other. I hope it's still fun, for all that.**

**X x X**

"Lord, Nick, you're a hard man to wake..."

A deep voice from just above him, and hard floor just below. Nick winched an eye open, looked around at unfamiliar surroundings and propped up on his elbows. Ah yeah - Jan's spare room. He scrambled up on his knees, then his feet, knuckling the sleep out of his eyes. "Hey."

"Ah, the coma passes. Excellent. I'll go and make some breakfast - I'm done in the shower room. There's a clean towel on your bed."

"Thanks!" Wow. Good host. "Why was I on the floor?"

"You threw yourself down there in the hope that you'd continue sleeping. I think the thump might have jolted your little 'awake' button."

Nick grinned. "Sorry."

He grabbed his towel... a huge, wonderful soft blue thing that wrapped round from armpit to knees, and almost raced into the bathroom. It was the only good thing about having a pipe burst outside his apartment: the generous use of Hotel Jan until his place was hospitable again. A spare room with a double-bed. A fridge that held more than one carton of milk and the remains of a takeout. Non-creaking floorboards. A shower to die for. Nick felt like singing as he darted in. He was in love with this shower. It was insanely powerful, not like the pathetic drizzle at his place, where it took about an hour to get shampoo out of his hair.

After a brief rain dance on the slip-proof floor, he unhooked the fitting and set it to narrow spray to control the flow. He didn't control it very well to begin with and knocked himself sideways with a watery smack in the face, but once he'd recovered from that, the massage over his shoulders and back of neck was stress-melting heaven. He pummelled himself with the spray for a couple of minutes, making gooey noises (glad of the very heavy, sound-proofed door), then hooked the attachment back up so he could step out of the spray and lather up. Of course Jan would have foam. Nick turned himself into a face-to-foot foam yeti, stepped back under the spray and the force of the water scraped him squeaky clean in about two seconds flat.

Ok, so he could and … probably should… step out of the shower right now, but … hell. He repeated foam-yeti once more, rinsed off, then succumbed to the fact that he had other stuff to be doing with his day.

Jan was mumbling into his cell in Dutch when Nick got downstairs and he gaped at the sheer array of stuff laid out on the kitchen island. Cheeses, meat. Normal bread, cracker-breads, rolls, a couple of buckets of something creamy, a vat of milk, croissants, peanut butter, jelly, satay sauce (SIGH)... and a little box of something obscured by the cream buckets. Nick exhaled cautiously, deeply suspicious of spreads like this one. He'd learnt a lot from the boot camp he'd sent himself on as a teenager, and one thing he knew about himself was that he had a buffet problem. So he picked some crackers, lean meat, less-lean meat, some cheese, and walked away from the selection before it mysteriously floated en-masse onto his plate.

"...Ja ja... Jazeker... zie je overmorgen. Dooie..." Jan grinned as he pocketed his cell. "Alright, Nick?"

"Great breakfast." Nick indicated the massive spread. "I could get a little carried away with all that."

"Tuck in by all means," Jan murmured. "Could you pass the yoghurt?"

Nick looked around, confounded, then realised Jan was referring to one of the cream buckets. He handed it over, along with a little glass bowl and a spoon.

"Thanks, Nick. Just so you know, I've ― or rather, we've ― got company tomorrow night, if your water hasn't been fixed by then. They're still having accommodation problems with the families moved out from the Sangstrom Apartments."

"I'm not surprised. Nice of you to sign up a spare room."

Jan shrugged. "It would feel mean not to."

Nick sighed: there had been two tenement block fires this month already, the second ripping through nearly half an eight-story building. The folks driven out of Sangstrom could barely afford their rent while living there dirt cheap, and social services were stretched paper-thin trying to keep roofs over peoples' heads. They ate in silence for a while, Nick dwelling on the relief of having persisted with his SVU application, despite early doubts, rather than go for the specialist arson training that would've otherwise landed him slap-bang in the middle of this case.

"Could you pass the Hagelslag?" Jan asked eventually, pulling him from his reverie.

"Huh?"

"The little red box with the flip-side opening."

Nick picked up the box and grinned. The box may say 'Hagelslag' (which made him think of argumentative ladies of the night) but it contained sprinkles. Mr Universe, with the home gym set to a minimum 170lb lift... had SPRINKLES. "You put sprinkles in your yoghurt? Really?"

"God, no. I put them on my toast, thank you." Jan did so, neatly, and moved the empty yoghurt bucket to one side to make room.

"Wasn't that full?" Nick upended it in disbelief, definitely drained, and checked the side panel. 800 grammes – two pounds – of yoghurt. Gone. Vamoosed. Unbelievable. Straight from the pot, too. The little glass bowl untouched.

"Sorry, did you want some? There's no more strawberry, but the apple-cinnamon one's quite good."

"No, no, it's fine..." Nick shook his head in wonder and finished off his ham sandwich, wondering if he should volunteer his partner for an 'amateurs' episode of Man Versus Food. He'd barely seen the big guy move. Talk about stealthy eating. He held out his cup gratefully as Jan re-filled it with coffee from the percolator. Once slightly more caffeinated, he realised it was only eight on a Sunday morning. "Why are we up so early?"

"All the narcotics boys are shifting over this morning, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Nick lied. "But… why does that involve us being at work at awful 'o clock?"

"Captain Wilson left me a reminder message last night about us helping them to set up upstairs. We volunteered, apparently."

"That was foolish of 'us'" Nick observed.

"I don't recall signing up for it either, but it looks like we've been conscripted. Sorry."

Nick groaned into his forearm. If Wilson weren't so nice most of the time, he'd take the rest of his breakfast and go back to bed.

Jan's phone went off and he turned it to loudspeaker while he gathered plates. "Ma'am?"

"Oh good, you're up. Nick still crashing with you?"

"Here!"

"Of course we're up," Jan pointed out. "You left a rather stern message with me last night to ensure that we _would _be up, so―"

"Precautions, precautions. Look, I'm sorry to do this to you guys, but there was an attempt at a third tenement fire, which led to mass evacuation, and in turn to the discovery of a body by responding officers. The death looks drugs-related, but a door-knock exercise revealed what the Portland Narc team believes to be an abuse or wilful neglect case. I'll text location, but could you get over there? This is usually child services territory, I know, but they literally have no-one they can send out right now."

Jan met Nick's eyes and Nick shrugged agreement. If it were abuse, child services would refer the case to them to investigate anyway, so they may as well get to see the original scene for themselves.

"On our way, Ma'am."

Wilson's voice cut in just before Jan rung off. "Oh, and guys… you _have_ shaved, right?"

"Yes!" they chorused, and Nick was pleased to see Jan as indignant at the reminder as he felt.

"Good. Thank you. I'll send that donation off now. Look, I'm on shift today, so grab me at the precinct if you need anything, alright?"

"Ma'am," Jan murmured, and hung up.

Nick noticed that they were both running hands over recently clean-shaven faces. They'd managed a good two weeks of the charity moustache-growing contest before Wilson returned from leave and had a fit about professional appearances. She'd told him that if he wanted to do facial hair, he needed to go full-beard because he looked like he was trying to rehome a hairy pencil. Real dignified. Nick raised his brows at his slightly pink partner. "What did she say to you?"

Jan's blush deepened. "That I looked like a German porn star."

"I'll just go clean my teeth." Nick clapped Jan's arm consolingly and zipped up the stairs to keep his out-of-control grin to himself. It was just these tiny golden moments that proved to him that the growing rumours about Jan being Wilson's 'pet detective' was just bullshit.

**X x X**

They pulled up outside MacIsle House, banned from entering until the fire crews designated the building safe. Nick stood by while Jan remonstrated quietly and politely with the arson team, establishing why half of the narcotics team had managed to get inside to toss a room for a drugs connection, while there was potentially a lone child in one of the other apartments down the same hall.

The mild tone worked wonders. Jan's contact jogged off to speak to the fire crews, while a second guy ran them through the background: the fires were designed to create a lot of smoke and panic so people would evacuate without locking up properly, but so much damage that it became unsafe to carry out a swift burglary spree before the fire department showed up. The Sangstrom situation was a tragedy: the apartments were so poorly maintained that the fire turned electrical from the single ignition room and spread across six floors in two minutes. Karma struck, though. In his haste to leave, the perp fell down the steps from the fourth landing, his arms full of stolen goods which made it impossible to brace against injury. He bashed his way down to ambulance arrest with the ignition sources still in his pockets.

Jan got the nod to go in. "I'm going to find the super. See if I can get any information on apartment ownership for 401, comings and goings, all of that. Could you see what you can get from narcotics? I'll see you up there."

"Alright." Nick didn't have to wait long: the rest of the narcotics team arrived about a minute later in a red Dodge. He watched in amusement as they put their hands on their hips and stared up at the building like 1970s bad-ass cops waiting for their theme music to start. They all looked like they'd invested serious energy to moustache month, but the two most impressive displays belonged to a ginger guy who was growing his own over-lip tabby cat, and a big black guy whose look was, well… classic. He wore a black polo neck jumper. A long black, fairly shiny leather jacket. His shoulder holster was forced over broad shoulders, and he looked grimly determined to look grimly determined. All this, plus his immaculate Samuel L Jackson goatee drove Nick to want to squeak "SHAFT!"

Goatee guy shot him a sideways glare. "Excuse me? Got something to say about my look?"

Fuck. Nick gulped. Fuck, that was out loud. And this guy was BIG. And unhappy. Nick fished for the smile he'd applied to Aunt Marie when she caught him doing fun stuff like firing apples across the yard with this weird catapult thing he found hung behind the shed door. Shaft was unmoved by his boyishness.

"I-I thought... it was a really good moustache month effort."

"This 'good effort' is not temporary," the guy barked. He rolled his eyes over to his colleagues. "Theirs maybe... and I seriously hope so, but mine is cultivated style."

"Sorry," Nick muttered. God, he was defiant about it. It struck Nick as new-start defiance: new era, new look, new scary sideburns. Something about the guy said _'I'm done with soft: do not be messing me around._' Nick had another stab at conversation. "I'm Burkhardt, by the way."

"Griffin." As the guy stomped ahead towards the lifts, Nick discreetly consulted his wallet list of guys to tread carefully around. Det. H Griffin... third on the list. Nick groaned inwardly. Way to go, rookie. Instantly annoy the easily-annoyed guy.

"That your avoidance list?"

Griffin's voice came from right on top of him, making Nick start guiltily. He'd stopped dead, his arms folded, his brow raised. Nick tried fumbling his paper away.

"No, no, it's a list of people who ah... really know their stuff in different areas."

Griffin burst out laughing. "God, that is the most ... endearing _bullshit_ I've heard in years. _That_ is an avoidance list. You know how I know this? I got given one too. All rookies get one." He snatched it.

"Ok, so I was bullshitting, but it's not an avoidance list!" Nick spluttered, trying to grab it back from Griffin-Shaft. "It's just guys I shouldn't be too… uh… energetic with first thing in the morning."

Griffin looked it over with a grin. "Ok… Hendricks, Halston, Warner ― natch. All on my list, too. Griffin… hmph. Oddly, not on my list. Who's your partner?"

Nick hung his head and mumbled "Jan Vergeer."

"Oh... _him_."

"What do you mean 'oh _him_'?"

"Got varied reputations. He's either the humourless bad-ass, the rich boy, or Wilson's pet detective. Depending on who you're talking to."

"Well no-one's talked to me yet," Nick said hotly.

"You guys get on ok?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Hope it stays that way." Griffin shrugged and stabbed the button for the fourth floor.

There was an awkward half minute while they stared at different places on the same dull lift wall. Nick considered taking the conversation further, particularly as he'd had previous suspicions that there had been other rookie issues for Jan, but they arrived on fourth and Griffin ushered him out.

"Ok Berk heart―"

"Burkhardt! One word!"

"Fine, Burkhardt. Here's the deal. We were called into a find in room 413…"

Nick looked in 413's doorway, where a body lay sprawled face up on a stained carpet, covered in and surrounded by white powder, like a bag had been ripped during a fight. The body had been severely beaten: the facial features battered beyond recognition. Nick felt a bit sick.

"… Our priority is to find who was renting this place, running the stash, and if this guy was involved, or just walked past the wrong door at the wrong time. _Your _case is down here…"

Nick followed Griffin down to 401, noticing the powder trail down the corridor and in through the doorway. Ginger-tache guy stomped past them into the room.

Griffin turned just before the doorway and dropped his voice. "The kid could still be in there, so I'll try to keep this a little quiet. Fowler from the West Side team got here first. He cleared the room, then heard crying. Now, we can't toss the place for drugs evidence until―"

Nick and Griffin flinched as an almighty crash came from inside, followed by a wail. Nick was about to protest about scaring the hell out of a kid when Griffin rounded the corner angrily.

"GUYS! Remember why we asked for SVU? Back on out, alright? Let them do their job, then we can do ours. Don't be glaring at me, Jack."

"Thanks." Nick ventured in slowly and wasn't too pleased to be shoulder-hooked by Tabby guy Jack on his way out.

Nick got down on his hands and knees, making himself smaller, to begin with. A cursory glance around showed no hiding bulges behind curtains or under throws, and there was very little in the way of furniture except an ancient, heavy wood and leather couch. The whimpering came from under the couch. Nick lay down on his front and saw very little fingers, slightly pudgy, curled around one of the couch's wooden feet. A chubby little wrist disappeared into a dirty, embroidered, turquoise sleeve, which was swallowed up into the darkness under the furniture. Nick sighed. The hand belonged to a little girl who was 18 months old ― at most.

"You hiding under there?" He tried using the normal-but-light voice he'd used for Dula's little one until she was two (until his standard tone changed to limitless panic) and slid his hand under the couch, just leaving it there. "Those guys were making a lot of noise weren't they? Yeah! Here's a quieter hand."

The little girl sniffed. A couple of minutes went by, then he felt curious fingers poke at his thumb. It was such a light touch that it tickled a little. Jan smiled down at him as he stepped over and went straight to the desk in the corner of the room, rifling for ID information.

Nick risked putting his face down so she could see him. "How about coming out?"

"Out," she echoed, and he breathed out in relief. Good. Ok, so she knew some basic words. That was good.

"Alrighty." He slipped both hands under the couch, feeling over her arms to find her armpits to pull her forward. There was very little space under there and she'd got herself stuck. Damn. "Ok, I'm just going to lift the couch. Then you crawl out, ok?"

On his knees, he had limited bicep leverage, so he only managed about eight inches of lift. He held the position for a good minute, but she still didn't move. Crap. What now? He couldn't put the couch down in case it squished her, but he couldn't hold onto it either―

And then the couch was lifted entirely out of his hands and moved a few feet back. Nick tried not to stare as Jan casually relocated it like it was a one-cup coffee table. "Um... thanks!"

With her hiding place removed, the little girl sat bolt upright, then pushed up from her splayed hands, trip-toddling over to Nick at speed and stuffing her face into his front. He stood and lifted her into a cuddle, trying not to think too hard about how heavy the nappy felt. The little girl looked up and up and up the Tower of Jan, saw the friendly smile at the top of it and buried her face in Nick's neck with a shriek. Knowing when his presence wasn't helpful, Jan backed up a little.

"Her reaction…could just be a giant-thing. Maybe her parents are really short?"

"Good point," Griffin muttered, appearing suddenly alongside him. "Or maybe she saw a guy in here who was really big."

"Or maybe she just doesn't appreciate some over-sized jerk moving her hiding place." This from 'Jack', who'd returned to the room to carry on his search.

Jan looked down at the guy, his face stony, then indicated the exit to Nick. "Let's get out of here. I've grabbed some paperwork and all the supplies I can find, but we'll need to do a little shopping. There's not a clean stitch of clothing for her in the place and... I don't think the washing machine's been emptied for a few days."

Griffin screwed his face up. "Just what we need ― a faceful of sour-soap stink. But hey, would you guys do me a favour? If you get any ID or connection between _who was found next door_ and this place, give me a ring. I'd appreciate it. It might move our case forward a little. Same goes other way, of course."

Jan nodded and took the card, since Nick had his arms full of toddler. Then Nick remembered they had to get her into the Toyota to get her back to the precinct. "Ah, Jan... we need a car seat."

"There's one in my boot. Let's go."

Wow, he was keen to leave. Nick followed Jan down the corridor at a trot. "Not that this isn't great news, but how do you conveniently have a baby seat in your boot?"

"My friend Axel often stays over with his grandson. I've got a lot of spare stuff so he can be spontaneous about when he drops by."

"Ah." Nick pulled his chin up slightly as they made their way to the car. One of the little girl's bunches was tickling his jaw insanely. It took Jan about a minute to get that carseat in place, and she was happy to be put into it. Feeling safe to join Jan in front, he shot his partner the odd quizzical sideways look as he pulled out and drove over to the precinct. They drove in silence for a few minutes, Jan looking stony, still.

"You alright? Because you seem really pissed about something."

"I am, but it's not you." Jan indicated and swung into the parking lot of a department store. "As you've probably spotted, I'm not really on Jack Halston's Christmas Card list."

Nick's shoulder was still slightly bruised from the guy's deliberate exit slam. "Want to talk about it?"

"Over a beer, sometime. I'd appreciate that. But right now, Angie in the back there needs us _both_ to remain even tempered."

"How do you know she's called Angie?"

"It's been written on all her clothes labels. It's just about all I could find about her. No papers, no photos, no nothing. I found some bills in a drawer under various names so I've grabbed those, but I get the impression from the super that it may be a job finding out who rented the apartment. Cash payments monthly, left in his box bang on time, but he doesn't know what the guy looks like because his deputy ― since fired ― showed the resident around at application time."

Nick frowned and dropped his voice slightly, then looked over to the back seat. Angie had dropped off asleep already. "Wow. Little lady's tired. So… we don't even know if the guy from 401 is who narc found dead in 413?"

"We don't even know if the guy living in 401 is related to Angie. Too many questions floating around now, Nick. Oh by the way… could you grab my wallet from the dash and text Griffin to say thanks for being discreet? It's not everyone that remembers that little people can understand and get upset."

Nick did so. Then figured he might need to confess his little screw-up to Jan. Get it out of the way early. Unsure how to approach it, he went for cold, hard truth with a bit of dithering mixed in. "Ah… Jan? You know you mentioned difficulties with narcotics guys?"

"With Halston, yes."

"I think I may have... I think I've... "

Jan found a car-parking space and started manoeuvring into reverse. "What do you think you've done?"

"I pissed off Griffin. And he's on your people-not-to-piss off list. And he... kind of worked out that he was on your list."

"Oh dear. How?"

"He saw it."

"Nick! How did he see it?"

Nick's face flamed. "He was being short-tempered, so I checked when I thought he wasn't looking. Then he kind of… turned around."

Jan put the handbrake on, snapped engine off, and bounced his forehead lightly on the steering wheel. It took Nick a few moments to realise that he was laughing. "Nick, you know that phrase 'rookie mistake'? Well... "

"Yeah, alright, alright…" At least the laugh was better than a lecture. He got out of the passenger seat, unbuckled Angie and smiled hopefully at Jan. "I don't suppose you have a 'spare' buggy in your boot too, do you?"

"I'll take her for now. You can take her back when she wakes up screaming."

Jan peeled her out of her seat and she snoozed in the temporary bed of his forearm and chest, her little feet bouncing on his fingers. Nick followed Jan into the shopping centre, trying to get his head around the different sides of his partner that were coming to light ― none of them flatteringly described ― on top of the cold war going on between him and Halston. He'd picked up hints here and there over the last couple of months that things had gone badly with his last rookie, but that was as much as he knew (if gossip counted as 'knowing') and he didn't want to ask. Yet. Maybe it would all come out over that beer that Jan had suggested.

: : : : :

Jan carried Angie round the store while Nick efficiently flicked select items into the trolley. It was focussed shopping, Jan noted: just the stuff they'd need for a couple of days if necessary. Spare diapers. A beaker. Fresh clothes. A selection of toddler-friendly snacks. All picked by someone who'd done this kind of shopping many times before.

Jan was beginning to adjust his initial suspicions of straightforward wilful neglect. While she snored softly in the crook of his arm, key points became apparent: she was well-fed, to begin with, with a good complexion. Her teeth were bright and white. Her hair looked like it hadn't gone without a wash for more than a couple of days. In the long run, she was a much-loved child. _Who_ she belonged to… that was the issue. He really hoped that the dead man in 413 wasn't her dad.

He'd smelt Reinigen as soon as he'd passed the body in 413, and even more strongly in apartment 401, but Angie smelt human, thus far. But that wasn't so unusual. Most purebred wesen didn't manifest until they were quite a lot older: even his own Koninglowen breed, some of the earliest wogers, didn't show themselves until they were 3-5 years old. It wasn't _impossible_ that she was Reinigen, and potentially the dead guy's daughter, but there tended to be a fairly high correlation between Reinigen perps and children led astray. He tried ignoring sterotypes, but some wesen just lent themselves to different kinds of crime. Like Koninglowen and mafia arrangements.

They paid, then zipped to the diaper change station. Thankfully, she remained asleep during both the clean-up operation and the redressing one, during which they managed to get her into fresh lilac trousers and a white thermal top. She remained asleep as Jan strapped her back into her seat, and until they got back to their desks at Gresham.

Nick repeatedly called child services to find a home for her for the night while Jan ran the IDs from the paperwork he'd found in apartment 401. He'd found billing info relating to four different names, but none of them registered in their system as people with records, and none of them matched the name of the guy who apparently paid the rent in the apartment: James Sands. And most maddeningly, not even an hour on the phone with social services and trying 8 different variations of possible full names for Angie/Angela could determine exactly who she was. They shared an exasperated sigh, and then Angie started to stir, waving her arms and doing 'the lip' in her sleep. Jan handed her hurriedly back to Nick, who managed to wake her at a speed and in a manner of gentleness that she just about found acceptable.

Jan grinned. "You seem to know what to do."

"I kind of became 'Uncle Nick' when I was 19."

"I thought you were an only child?"

"I was ― am. I mean the godparent kind of uncle. My friend Dula went a little nuts at college after years of being ferociously over-protected and.. well... failed to protect herself. But she turned out to be a great mom." Angie yawned in Nick's face, making him chuckle and put a mock hand over her mouth. "You don't seem so bad with kids yourself. You looked very natural carrying her around in the store."

Jan chuckled. "Anyone can look 'natural' with a sleeping child. How you cope when they wake up… that's the real test." And the test began pretty promptly as Angie treated Nick to her best air-raid siren impression.

Nick pointed hurriedly at the food bag and jiggled her up and down industriously. "Offer her a bit of the plain bun."

Jan tore off a bit and passed it to her between forefinger and thumb, but as his hand went up, hers came down, and after a few near passes, he had to put a hand on Nick's shoulder to slow him a bit. "I don't think our combined coordination is up to this kind of challenge!"

Angie took the bit of bun, inspected it at length, then crumpled her face in despair.

"Oh dear. She's appalled by that. Let's try the raisin bun."

The raisin bun was no better. Jan sighed. "Look, you give it to her. See if that helps."

Nick took a fresh bit, looked her right in the eye and said firmly, "Right honey. Fruity bun goes in... NOW!"

Angie found herself chewing in a state of slight astonishment and they waited with bated breath for the verdict. Jan sighed with relief as her life appeared to improve and she reached for another bit. "Bun!"

"Bun!" Nick agreed, and she was re-seated on his lap with a few more bits spread out on a tissue while they talked strategy. "I'm thinking she's been to daycare at some point, because all her stuff is labelled, which is something you only do if you need to ensure you get your stuff back."

Jan nodded and got his mobile out. Tracking down the day-care place was a good start to identify her, at least. He took a discreet picture of her face while she was busy taking the raisins out of her bun and putting them up Nick's sleeve. Plus – most daycare places and nurseries with drop-off arrangements had pictures of the parents or guardians on file, along with full contact details and signature. Only those people were permitted to pick the child up. He looked up Portland child care facilities, and the list was enormous. They would have to focus on the free or subsidised ones first.

Like a mind-reader, Nick offered, "try govsub, forward slash daycare - one word - dot org dot US. I spent a lot of time on that site with Dula back in the day."

On this site, Jan could limit the search to within five miles of the apartment zipcode, and this brought the selection down to three. To start with. "Are you ok to check these places out? I'll keep hold of Angie, for now."

Nick eased Angie onto their combined desk and shook the raisins out of his sleeve back onto her bit of tissue. "You guys going to be ok for a while?"

Jan looked at Angie nervously as she randomly leant over and picked up Nick's stapler. He hastily and gently removed it, which immediately earned him a fresh sprinkling display. "I'm sure we'll muddle through somehow."

"Ok, I'll just run to the head, then I'll set out."

: : : : :

Hank unloaded his gear into his desk drawer, claimed his coat peg, and booted up only to find that their transplanted hard drives hadn't been hooked up to the servers yet. Suppressing a groan, he made himself a coffee from the machine and traipsed off down the stairs in search of SVU. Vergeer and Burkhardt seemed friendly enough. Maybe they wouldn't mind him logging in for a short while. Check his emails at least.

He heard wailing from the third landing. It was not what you often heard at a precinct: the wail of a really small, but really angry person. Hank trotted a little faster and as he got down to the first floor corridor, saw the tiny little girl from MacIsle House starfished on the floor outside the men's room, screaming and slamming her little fists on the floor. Hank bent way down and tried lifting her but the girl was not for lifting. He didn't get it. There was no Velcro or glue attaching her to the floor. There were no hidden floor handles she'd gripped her legs round. She just wouldn't be lifted from under the arms. Ok, this was ridiculous. She weighed what… 20lb at most? He pulled her from off the floor and tried to give her a hug when she unleashed serious sound into his ear.

His eyes watered. Just as he thought she couldn't get any noisier, she found some spare decibels hanging around and chucked those into the mix. So it was with a wave of crashing relief that he saw Vergeer trotting over from the printer, his hands extended. Hank passed her over gratefully and watched as she disappeared into his grip.

"Eh, ey... kom aan... kom aan... Sta maar op, schatje..."

Perhaps it was the natural resonance of his voice, but even when speaking fairly slowly and quietly, Vergeer managed to cut through the sounds of infant nuclear melt-down going on behind his palm. All Hank could see of the screaming infant's head was the honey-blonde bunches sticking out from between Vergeer's fingers. It looked like he had a really noisy hand.

Captain Wilson emerged in the corridor and approached cautiously, a finger in her left ear. "Is this the girl recovered from the drugs bust?"

"This is Angie. We haven't got much further than that, have we?" Vergeer murmured to the tot. "And you've had a terrible morning. All grave disappointments."

Hank bit back a smirk as Angie peered up at her sympathiser, all wet-lashed, sniffling and 'please-hug-me-some-more.'

"She's had a worse time with you guys than she did in that horrid apartment? What the hell happened?"

Vergeer shrugged. "First I stood next to her. That was just awful."

Hank nodded agreement. "Believe me, she took serious umbrage."

"Then her bun had no raisins. Then it did have raisins, but not provided by Nick. Then we had to confiscate a stapler from her. And finally, she tried to follow him into the gents but he let the door shut behind him. This was completely unacceptable."

"Shocking behaviour."

"She clearly thinks so." Vergeer hoiked her up onto his shoulder, which Hank could see instantly as a 200 decibel mistake waiting to happen. And as suspected, he had to bring her back down to chest-height pretty sharpish. "You would have to have vertigo, wouldn't you? Alright, lower cuddle it is…"

She was reaching the wider limits of her air-raid repertoire when Nick darted out of the can, reaching for her in alarm. The moment he'd reclaimed her, it was wet smiles all round. Hank gave her a sideways look. Mini-minx. Knew how to get what she wanted.

"What happened?"

"She missed you."

"I was gone two minutes! I sprinted! I could not have whizzed any fas―"

The Captain cleared her throat and voiced Hank's precise feelings. "Too much information! Look, guys, as sympathetic as I am to her situation… please could you take this out-of-office for a while? I've got an audit to finish ― hence being here on a goddamn Sunday ― and some people to shout at about Narc's servers still being offline. So sorry, Hank. I thought I'd be doing you guys a favour, bringing you all in a little early to set up before the week kicked off."

"'S Fine, Ma'am." And it was. Hank didn't relish being alone in the house again. Not so soon after Felicity moving out. And it didn't suck being around guys who knew very little about his private life right now, because he was getting a little sick of hearing 'Felicity the Fourth' jokes from Halston et al. His rookie days as a detective were a good year gone now, but he knew if he tried the same tone with some of his Portland narc guys that they used on him, he'd still get slapped down pretty quick.

"Pannekoekhuis," Jan said suddenly.

Hank shared a confused look with Burkhardt. "What?"

"I was thinking where to take her, and I remembered the Pancake House. Good quiet tables, and a petting zoo next door. Nick's doing nursery visits to identify Angie, but you going to join me, Hank?"

Hank was a little surprised but it was nice to be asked. "Sure. Maybe you can catch me up on whatever you found. See if our cases are actually crossing over at all. Ours is taking the sweet road to nowhere, right now."

Rookie Nick looked aggrieved to be missing out on pancakes. "Why don't I take her with me to the nurseries? Then I can―"

"No," Wilson said lightly. "She's clearly already very fond of you. Which is useful in its way, until it turns into attachment. And that's hard on both of you. You'll have to spread the childcare around, guys, just until someone can help out with her domestic arrangements."

Hank spluttered. "What, you're counting me in that?"

"Teamwork is everything, Griffin." Wilson winked at him and walked off. Huffing a sigh, Hank followed Jan down to his car while Nick sped off to do his nursery calls. Ok, so no email check just yet, then. And technically, he was off-shift. There were worse ways he could be spending his Sunday morning than at a pancake house.

The Toyota was a comfortable ride and they travelled with the radio on until pulling into this carpark in front of a big wooden hut set into the side of the Briar Path track. Looking around the place, it was a haven for joggers whose focus was on the freedom of jogging, not burning off any calories. Quite a few tracksuited people sat around guiltily shovelling mattress-sized snacks. They ordered a high chair for Angie, grabbed menus, and it took Vergeer about 30 seconds to decide what to have before putting his menu back down.

"You a regular here?" Hank asked, still floating in a sea of indecision. Sweet pancake, or savoury? Man. Choices. He couldn't do choices. He always had to have the lunch special set meals: not because of the price, but because a la carte sent him into a flat spin.

"Regular pancake eater," Vergeer said with a smile. "Not usually here. It's a little out of my way. But I thought if she went really berserk, we could try the little petting zoo over there. It might keep her happy long enough that we can hear ourselves think."

Hank laughed. "I thought you were good with kids?"

"I'm hopeless!"

They both looked down at Angie, who had now reversed her opinion of the giant and was staring adoringly at his left elbow.

"You look pretty on top of things to me."

"I'm talking about dealing with kids professionally. I lack distance. Plus, I'm a complete sucker."

Hank laughed, finally picked a damn pancake and put the menu down before he could change his mind again. The waitress came, took their orders, and swept off. The guy was a little more open than he'd imagined. Most really rich guys he'd met were very guarded. So while the guard was down, he had to ask.

"Why am I on your rookie's avoidance list?"

"It's not an avoidance list. It's a list of people not to get all bouncy with first thing in the morning. DeMarcos goes without saying, but I didn't want him to start agitating people before he'd got his feet into the job. And you aren't a morning person."

Hank waggled his finger. "Uh uh. Incorrect. I'm not a get-screamed-at-by-my-wife-in-the-streets-in-the-m orning person. Sure. But mornings themselves… got nothing against them."

Vergeer raised a brow. "Apologies. Consider yourself off the list."

"I'm honoured."

"So how are you doing?"

Hank blinked. "Pardon me?"

"Are you being screamed at in the morning right now, or…?"

He sighed. It was a genuine question, asked kindly, but he just didn't want to get into it. "Not right now. Felicity moved out last week."

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Hank sighed. "Thanks, by the way. For not saying 'again?'"

"People say that to you?"

"All the time."

Vergeer considered this. "Sprinkle Tabasco sauce on their car door handles and wait outside the men's room for the howls to start. You might find the sound effects strangely rewarding."

"Sounds like a plan." Hank grinned, then the food was brought over. Wow. Quick. He'd gone for cheese and bacon. Simple. Vergeer had an everything-flavour pancake, so far as he could see, and Angie wasted no time in picking up her little sheet of dough and stuffing it in her mouth before any of the toppings went on. Hank and Vergeer stared as she demolished it in her fists in about a minute and a half.

"Jeez, did she not get fed?"

"Perhaps not in the last day or so," Vergeer murmured. "This is immediate hunger. In the longer run, I think she ate well. I think things just fell apart for whoever is caring for her right now."

"You got any names yet?"

"Ah yes, sorry. Business. The only thing we have to run with is 'James Sands', which is the name the super gave us for whoever was leaving him his monthly rent checks. However, there were quite a few other bills in that place addressed to others…"

Hank nodded as Vergeer covered every aspect of what they'd found and not found, steering clear of the one issue they couldn't mention in front of Angie. The body. Hank looked at Angie again. Once with people she'd gotten used to, she was fine. She didn't have that twitchy, nervous look of the kids of alcohol/drug dependent parents, her appetite was good and… if anything… she didn't seem even vaguely homesick for that apartment. So when he tuned back into what Vergeer was saying about running her photo and details on the missing persons database, it kind of made sense. Maybe whoever took her genuinely loved her and thought they were doing her a favour. Not that it excused child abduction but… hey…. They didn't know who the parents were, yet.

He watched while Vergeer disentangled the little girl from pancake handcuffs. He wasn't really what Hank had been expecting, after all Halston's bluster. But then, Halston wasn't exactly objective.

"By the way," he said, feeling weirdly open around the big guy, "I'm sorry about Jack. He was out of line, earlier."

"Yes, he was."

Vergeer didn't even raise his voice but Hank got the distinct impression that his not-so-subtle colleague Jack ought to watch his mouth for a while if he wanted to keep his teeth. But there were two sides to every story.

"Look, for what it's worth, I think Jack's attitude is just a protective thing. Simon's his godson and he spent his whole life watching this kid grow up wanting to be a cop and nothing else. So, for him to get shoved out so early… hard to see. And it's not like Simon can go to his dad to cry on his shoulder."

"I feel very bad about the way Simon left," Vergeer said carefully. "I know how he felt about making detective. But he broke _so_ many rules and nearly got himself killed twice ― that we know about ― by running in to check his hunches without looking or thinking."

Maybe this was the by-the-book-hardass side Jack had been telling him about. Hank had a respect for the rules, but they didn't always work well in a job where you had to use your instinct and make decisions on the spot. He sighed. "It's the problem with narcotics, man. It's not just the perps that get their perspective screwed up. You get to see a limited group of perps time and time again and you learn to ringfence them into predictable situations and scenarios. It's how you get the job done. Unfortunately it can kind of go beyond that and everything becomes black and white. You just need to see where he's coming from."

"I can see where Halston's coming from. But I've cut him his last bit of slack. Next time he wants to jab at me while I'm on the job, he'll be lucky if he can see where he's going."

"Whoo. Ok." Hank put his hands up. "I don't think I'll be passing that message on somehow. He's still playing the grieving godfather."

"Simon didn't die. It was either fired or medically retired," Vergeer said quietly. "I think Wilson chose the gentler option for him, but made it pretty clear that without his injuries, he'd be looking at the door anyway."

Fair enough. "Curiosity killed the cat, huh?"

Vergeer looked at him long and hard for a moment and Hank wondered if he'd randomly said the equivalent of something else, really rude, in Dutch, when he finally cracked a rueful smile. "Not killed, perhaps. But it was a close-run thing."

"Hey! Got any food left?"

Hank and Vergeer cleared their seats with shock as Nick appeared like a cheerful lightning bolt beside them. "Crap, man! Couldn't you knock on the table or something?"

"Sorry," Nick said unapologetically. He grabbed a seat, ruffled Angie's head, and scrawled on the back of a bit of paper.

_Not saying this out loud, I think she's been abducted and has probably been living in that hovel as long as she can remember. Shall we go to the zoo?_

Hank frowned. "Man, you like mixing your tones in a message, don't you? 'There's been a mass earthquake. Let's get icecream.'"

"Ha. I thought we could talk discreetly there," Nick explained.

"Whatever!" Hank turned to appeal to Vergeer's greater sense of occasion, but he was mysteriously 20 feet across the restaurant, halfway through paying. He didn't remember seeing the guy even move. God. Stealthy. Ah well. Maybe he'd be around to see the big guy sneak up on Nick some time. That'd be good to see.

_**TBC!**_


	6. The trouble with Narcotics (part 2)

**First of all, thanks for all the lovely reviews! They really gave me a lovely lift. I'm glad you've enjoyed thus far and I hope you continue to do so! Issues not getting resolved in the main body of the plot here will carry over into future stories (or this one would go on forever, lol)**

**There's probably a couple more stories to come after this, and in the background I'm trying to hack away at 'Blutbau Cometh'. Sorry about the delay in updating… had a hideous cough which has somewhat cut into my personal time!**

**Right.. I believe we left Nick, Hank and Jan paying up at the pancake house and on their way to the petting zoo….**

**X x X**

Having checked between the three of them that there were no streams or gulleys for Angie to plummet into and that the area was completely contained, they parked themselves on a log in the free range area while the little girl toddled around after the baby goats. One of the goats chewed unconcernedly at Griffin's laces, failing to feel the heat of his hostile glare. Nick rolled his eyes. The goat was maybe just a little bigger than a Labrador puppy but clearly big enough to distract Griffin from his nursery news.

Jan bent, scooped it up in one hand and moved it gently away. It returned instantly to the scene of Griffin's laces.

"God-damn!"

"..ANYWAY," Nick began, "The nursery director at Cookson Kids recognised your picture of Angie, but they know her as Cathy Jones, her father-stroke-guardian as Patrick Jones. She was kind enough to email us a copy of both their photos and make a copy of his pick-up sheet." He passed it to Griffin, who squinted at the picture of Patrick. In fairness, Nick realised, it wasn't the best picture. Bad copy, grainy photo to start with.

"Could be the guy in the morgue, or maybe not. They've both got dark-ish hair and that's as much as I can tell you. Sorry, that's not much help."

Jan shrugged. "Maybe we'll have better luck with the electronic copy, and a trip to the morgue. What's the background then, Nick?"

"Jones signed up Angie about four months ago. I'm going to keep calling her 'Angie' because I can't get my head around 'Cathy' now. The Director was a little concerned to begin with. Jones was vague about his relationship to Angie and said he was going through an adoption process and that her mother wasn't around anymore. Cathy was completely out-of-scale unsettled for the first couple of weeks, even for a 13-month-old ― as she was then. She screamed for hours after he dropped her off, and then became hysterical when he picked her up. The director was ready to get advice from child services when things settled down."

"Suddenly?" Jan asked, and Nick nodded.

"Jones explained that they'd moved a long way and that he'd been a little down on his luck, so the Nursery Director figured that the little girl finally acclimatised to their new way of life and home. She also mentioned that Cathy never called him 'dada' or any other equivalent, and that she didn't even respond to the name 'Cathy' for the first month or so."

Jan mumbled something about parental preferences for names, slightly distracted by a group of lambs staring at him from round the edges of a small bush. They looked like they were debating. Or conspiring. He leant forward slightly and they darted back into their bush.

"I wish the small creatures would fear me," Griffin muttered, pushing the goat from his shoe again and glaring discouragement at the goat's even littler friend, who was coming to join the chew fest.

"So," Nick persisted, "I'm thinking that we run his photograph against the database and try to get a face match to anyone with a record. See if he really _is_ Patrick Jones. Is it worth talking to the feds?"

"It's worth a try, Nick, if only for any cross-state disappearances that fit the timetable. I've loaded her details onto missing persons in the meantime. But she's in pretty good shape, thank goodness, so at least we're not looking at a case of sustained neglect, whoever's child she is."

Griffin looked doubtful. "We narc guys can get a little insular, but even I would remember a story about a 1-year-old being snatched. That kind of stuff gets blown across national news."

"Depends on the circumstances." Nick folded up the parental signature sheet and put it back in his pocket. "You only tend to hear about it if there's ransom involved, or someone is already directly suspected of abuse."

"And sometimes, relatives report an abduction just to be vindictive after a failed custody case," Jan added.

"Hey man, why don't you just show Angie that picture of Jones? See how she reacts?"

Nick sighed. "Because it won't tell us very much."

Yeah, that would be the most obvious thing to do. But if Jones was a sinister character in her life, then the picture could upset her. If he was like a step-dad or big half-brother, or someone she was attached to... it could upset her to realise that she hadn't seen him for a day or so. Either way, they would be no further forward and have a distraught little girl on their hands. Who they still couldn't pass over to child services.

He heard distressed squealing and whirled round, hand automatically on the butt of his Glock, only to see Angie fleeing an irritable chicken. Slightly shocked at his own trigger-happy reaction, he popped her on his shoulders and rubbed her back as she bent forward, grabbed his head with her little hands and buried her face in his hair. Wilson was right: attachment happened way too easily. "It's ok, honey."

"Chickens are mean," Griffin muttered, reaching up to her. "They're mean, baby girl, but they can't fly. There's always that."

Nick felt the pressure on his head lift as she sat up a little on his shoulders, slightly consoled. Griffin seemed to have a stand-off but easy way with her. He felt it was time to try again with those introductions. "What does the H stand for?"

"Hank." They shook hands on it, this time, Hank giving a crooked smile. "C'mon, let's get back to the precinct. No chickens at the precinct. Or goddamn lace-loving goats, come to that."

: : : : :

Back at Gresham, Angie was happy to sit on Nick's lap, banging all kinds of merry hell out of his unconnected keyboard while Hank paid a visit to the mortuary two blocks down and Jan continued his quest to get Angie a place for the night. One of the feds agreed to call Nick back on disappearances registered by relatives between August and October, so with not much more he could do, he trawled through missing persons for children under three. It shocked him that there were enough of them to merit their own section of the database. Their group phone went off.

"Burkhardt, SVU."

"Halston. Griffin with you?"

"No, he's gone to the―"

"Well where the hell is he? We're trying to run down a supply source, here!"

Nick reached for his inner Jan and kept his voice completely even. It was something he'd gotten better at since starting with his omni-calm partner. "He's gone to the mortuary. We may have had a lead on the vic in room 413 at MacIsle House."

"Well good, but tell him to call me, right? I don't need the guy going AWOL while we're tracking down class-A."

The guy clicked off, leaving Nick to drop the handset back into its cradle. Asshole. Hank wasn't kidding about narc guys getting trapped in their own little universe. He went back to the missing pages and saw a picture of a tiny girl of 9 months or so that looked so much like Angie that he turned her round and popped her on the desk in front of him so that he could compare properly. But no: Angie was quite a bit slimmer, and her nose proportionately smaller.

"Abandoned child?" The hoarse voice came from over Nick's shoulder and he turned to see West Side's Captain leaning over, giving Angie's cheek a gentle flick. "Awful cases. I've done my SVU stint. You sleeping alright?"

"We'll see," Nick said, trying not to stare openly at how unwell the guy looked. "We only picked her up this morning." He had to hold himself back from adding, 'Jesus, are you ok?' Wilkes was grey, slightly breathless and sweaty. It was damn obvious he wasn't ok. But you didn't confront Captains with their moments of vulnerability. It went against every cop code. Angie gave Wilkes a rare, toothy beam, giving Nick the opportunity to offer the guy a seat in a discreet way.

"You want to sit? She looks like she's angling for a hug but won't take one standing thanks to certain people giving her a fear of heights..." Nick indicated Jan pacing by the windows with his cell, effectively cutting out the light.

"If I got started I could hug her all day, but the handover calls. Thanks for the offer, son. Take care, little lady."

Nick caught the briefest of winks as the guy picked up his case and creaked over to Wilson's office. Wilson came to her office door to greet him, and Nick caught a flash of concern between her and Jan as Wilkes made his way in and dropped into one of her armchairs. She and Jan held a secret conversation of glances, and then he nodded at her firmly before returning to his call.

"Good news and bad news, Nick," Hank muttered, swinging in next to him and grabbing a sheet of paper. He scrawled:

_Good news - guy in mortuary is not Patrick Jones. Bad news, we have no fricking idea who the guy the mortuary is._

Nick added underneath: _and we still have no idea where Patrick Jones is._

Why would he just suddenly disappear? If he weren't involved in the drugs haul in room 413? Nothing made any sense, right now. Nick's inbox pinged and he answered his email to find an auto-return from the criminal records database. Patrick Jones _was_ on there. He handed Angie to Hank and opened the email link. Jones' face flashed up there large and clear, with his record beneath and no aliases noted. Nick squinted at the screen: Jones had one public order offence for streaking at a season-end college football game, and nothing since ― not so much as a parking ticket.

He didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, at least Angie hadn't been grabbed by someone known to be a nasty piece of work. But after a couple of months in the job, he found that they were mostly adding people to the records database, not finding them on there. It was just the nature of the SVU job: the worst perps were the least likely ones to have a record. But abduction was now making less sense. If he'd taken the little girl from someone, why would he register her in her own name at a nursery, while using a false name to cover their tenancy at MacIsle House? Maybe they were running from something else. Together.

"Pat!" Angie shouted suddenly, almost lunging out of Hank's arms. Nick turned and she was pointing at his screen happily. "Pat!"

"Not Daddy?" Nick asked.

"Pat!" she insisted.

Ok – maybe he was her stepfather, or mom's boyfriend, much older brother. Or something. Suddenly Nick remembered the call from Halston. "Before I forget again, Halston called while you were at the mortuary. I told him you were trying to identify the vic in 413."

"He got me on my cell, too. Miserable ass." Hank paused as DeMarcos blasted through the office to Wilson's room. "And there goes another. There's a _very_ good side to the whole of the narc team brigading here. No more DeMarcos. What's Wilson like as a boss?"

Nick considered this. And considered Hank's facial hair. And felt that a gentle warning might be in order, at least in terms of her thing for professional appearances. "Fair, but surprisingly stern. Violently opposed to moustaches."

Hank chuckled. "Looks like we may have a battle on our hands. Let's see how that goes. Ok - Prince Charming's off the phone. Let's―"

As Jan wandered over, all three of them were startled by an explosion of DeMarcos noise from Wilson's office.

"God's sake Steve! This is not something you 'keep quiet' to this extent! What the hell are you playing at?"

The three of them exchanged bemused glances at the moment of quiet remonstration from behind the office door, then there was more yelling.

"You shouldn't be here! This is something we could've done by conference call, or Renard could've handled it... Jesus! Use a little sense!"

"Who yells at someone that sick?" Nick muttered. Hank and Jan stared at the carpet, probably thinking much the same. It took them all a moment to finish pretending that they hadn't overheard anything. Then Nick broke the quiet. "How did you get on with child services?"

"Uh… she was very good," Jan said meekly.

"What do you mean? Who was very good?"

"I spoke to a really nice lady called Cleo who reassured me that she knew how important it was to give Angie a comfortable, loving home for the night, and ah…"

Hank chuckled. "She's staying with you, isn't she?"

"Um… yes."

Nick flicked his hands up. Jan was Mr Smooth. Clearly outsmoothed by Miss Smooth. "How the hell did she talk you into that?"

"Not Jan's fault. I've come across Cleo. Dangerous woman. Could sell sand to an Arab. But you've got a big pad, right?"

"Not that big! I also seem to have acquired the Benton family for the night. Apparently they have four kids. They're a little difficult to find accommodation for."

"I thought you were doing the whole adopt-a-Sangstrom-family thing tomorrow night?"

"Both, it seems."

Nick did the bedroom math and realised that this Benton influx either put him in the kitchen or the utility room on a futon. This didn't particularly appeal, but Angie took priority in terms of room arrangements. "That's ok. Angie's more important. I can stay with Hank."

"You can?" Hank spluttered.

Nick cringed inwardly. Maybe the guy had a one-room apartment or something. He might be imposing a little. "You got a couch?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"I'll be no trouble. Just chuck me a quilt. We can get beer, pizza, and watch the game."

Hank blinked. "Kid, you ever heard of something called 'social mores?'"

He'd heard Aunt Marie mention them from time to time. "Yeah…why?"

"Well I'd like to see some more of them!"

"Hank, thanks for the couch."

"I didn't agree yet!"

"Jan, are you equipped to take in Angie?"

"I've got all Axel's stuff, so that's not a problem. You're a good guy Hank, thanks. You sure you don't mind?"

Hank sighed. "It's fine. My lumpy couch is his lumpy couch. See, Burkhardt? He was polite and thus I said yes. Watch him and learn."

Nick was about to comment that there was no real need for anyone to get so strung out by this sleep-over arrangement when the captaincy meeting broke up with a bang, DeMarcos stomping off out of the Squad room and out the building. As Wilkes emerged ahead of Wilson, Nick caught that slightly fraught glance between Wilson and Jan again.

"I'll give you a lift home, Sir. Grab a seat. I'm nearly done packing up."

Wilkes kind of folded down into Jan's chair, rubbing his hands down his face. "Thanks, Jan."

Wilson smiled at all three of them in a way that made Nick feel that even the sharp corners of the job were worth it. "Don't stick around too long ok, guys? You're not even supposed to be here today. Got a place for Angie for tonight?"

Jan nodded. "My place."

"Pat?" A sad little voice.

Nick felt little fingers clutching anxiously at him and looked down into huge moist eyes.

"Pat?"

Oh crap. What now? He scooped her up hurriedly, keeping his voice bouncy. "No Pat tonight. I'm sorry. But not on your own tonight, ok? You get to stay with Jan! Yeah! Lucky you! I don't get to stay with Jan tonight." She looked unconvinced. "Ah…. So what's great.. ok. Well he's got a bath you could sink a submarine in. And… a huge TV. And lots of cheese."

"teese?"

"Piles of cheese, yeah! And … sprinkles!"

Angie brightened immediately.

Wilson didn't, looking at Jan as if he'd showed up for work wearing pink thermals. "Why do you have sprinkles?"

"Ah...because they're good on toast?"

"Rainbow ones?"

Nick bit back a grin at Jan's slightly persecuted expression but felt a little bad that he seemed to have lowered his partner about 20% in his Captain's estimations.

"No, Ma'am, dark chocolate. What's the problem with sprinkles?"

Hank cleared his throat. "Nothin' wrong with sprinkles. Cause sprinkles are just soooo… manly."

"Yes _thanks_, Hank."

"Nice on fairy cakes too."

"Shut it, Shaft." Jan gathered all Angie's stuff and picked up Wilkes' briefcase for him. "Ready to go, Sir?"

"Thanks, son." Wilkes pulled himself to his feet like he was just re-joining the land of the living. "What's this I hear about someone having sprinkles?"

"Oh, for God's sake!"

"Jan has," Wilson reported. "Oh, and guys, tomorrow morning all detectives are gathering at Portland at nine for announcements, ok? Please be there, even if you have to bring Angie. You'll get the auto-text anyway, but I just wanted to say that it's important you attend."

"Yes Ma'am," Nick handed Angie to Jan. "Anything else for me to do before I go? The feds said they'd call my mobile if they had any news on child disappearances."

"Could you put out an all-hospitals bulletin? Send out the photo and an outline of potential injuries based on the situation. So, concussion, agitation―"

"Potentially a high drugs concentration in the blood stream of a John Doe, that kind of thing?"

"Exactly. Much appreciated. I'll see you in the morning." Jan disappeared round the corner with Angie and Wilkes, walking really slowly, and Nick reached for the phone with a sigh. He'd start with neurology, even if it did mean trying to charm psychotic Hayley again.

Hank handed over a little card. "I'm gonna go catch up with Halston. Here's my address. I'll be there by eight. If I'm a little behind time, just go to the Zanzi Bar on the corner and I'll come grab you when I'm done."

"Thanks Hank. Really."

"More of the mores. Good job. Later, Nick."

Nick added a few other scenarios to the potential patient profile, made about a dozen calls, the same number of emails and made about six trips to the fax machine before Wilson finally booted him out, insisting on giving him a lift to the Zanzi Bar before going onto Wilkes' place. The Feds called Nick back just as Hank was wading his way through to the bar, and confirmed that a Cathy Jones was reported missing four months ago by a couple in Seattle who were convinced that their son-in-law was taking her somewhere unsuitable in an 'unstable frame of mind'. It was a family matter, local police concluded. Nick sighed. It just looked like the guy had moved a dramatic distance to escape nightmare in-laws, but had fallen on hard times. He just hoped that the bulletin helped to track the guy down, not too badly hurt, and that their luck improved. Being returned safe and sound to a shithole like MacIsle House wouldn't be such a great ending for either of them.

**X x X**

Sean couldn't sleep. All the Captaincy competency boards were done and he had his substantive rank. As of last week. And as of today, he had a substantive interim Captain's position, but couldn't enjoy the glow of progression. Not under the circumstances, and not until he had word that Wilkes was doing better.

Helen Wilson's late night, slightly choked up call still rang around in his head.

Steve Wilkes was very, _very_ lucky Vergeer made a point of calling Wilson as soon as he'd dropped Wilkes home to say that the guy looked like hell. She went round to see him and found him passed out, half in and half out of the back door, in the grip of a raging septicaemic fever. They all knew he was sick from recurring throat infections and the Captains had met yesterday to discuss a longer-term handover as well as the officers' audit. What none of them knew (Wilkes included) was that he couldn't heal between infections because he had first-stage cancer of the throat.

Sean sighed heavily in the dark. There were times that they enjoyed a beer after shift, and there were times where Sean could cheerfully hit him with a baseball bat for taking so long to decide anything, but Wilkes was a good man, albeit a little soft in handling various officers' attitude malfunctions. Sean hoped for two simple things: that West Side remained his as Captain, but of course that Wilkes made a full recovery and got his own precinct again on a fresh-start transfer.

The Digital clock thumped over to 06:02. Giving up on sleep, Sean put coffee on, showered and shaved, moisturised, dressed, and took his cup back to bed, along with a tray of toast. He urgently craved distraction and knew exactly what would do the job. He found an episode of MasterChef he hadn't yet seen and got himself comfortable. He hated elimination shows, but MasterChef was his guilty pleasure. There was something incredibly relaxing about seeing a dozen or so people running around in a panic, and he couldn't get enough of the doom-laden narration.

They were down to the quarter finals now and eight harried, sweaty people laboured in an under-kitted army kitchen to prepare five haute-cuisine courses in two hours for a group of shouty generals. Sean sat back and enjoyed as nobody's sauce-making went to plan.

"...Letitia grows increasingly desperate about her kidney bean drizzle, and with just five minutes before service, Martin finds that his parmesan coulis has not so much set, as…. vulcanised."

Chuckling, Sean clapped crumbs off his fingers and watched Martin go into meltdown onscreen, barely prevented from quitting by the Aussie presenter, who shook sense into him and told him to get his 'arse to the pass without the coulis'. Sean thought the meal would probably be improved by its absence.

Just as Martin was serving up his first parmesan-free dish, DeMarcos called to tell him to get his ass down to Portland at eight for a quiet talk before the staff announcements. Sean snapped the TV off, resolving to return to the nightmare of Letitia's kidney bean drizzle when he got home later. For all DeMarcos' bravado, Sean knew he was probably as shaken as Wilson. He, Wilkes and Wilson went way back. Sean hoped Wilson was ok. It'd been some 30 years since she'd been Wilkes' rookie, but some partnerships were just built to last.

**X x X**

Jan couldn't believe how quickly the Bentons were out of his apartment in the morning, leaving a tiny note of thanks on his breakfast table and fleeing before he woke up. Bloody Maushertz. A little mane hair on the dustpan and brush borrowed to sweep up a broken glass, and they went into a total panic. He was just glad that the older Benton children wanted to help Angie with her bath before they took communal fright, because he would've felt incredibly awkward doing that himself.

Otherwise, he wasn't particularly upset to see them go. Despite his best efforts at being a warm host, they took silent timidity to extremes that even the Eisbibers would find trying. But he was annoyed that he was now in the position of trying to get ready for work with no-one to look after Angie while he cleaned up. Even with the baby gates firmly in place, he didn't like the idea of her toddling around and finding interesting things to injure herself with while he was in the shower.

He put her down on one of the two armchairs and pulled them together in a triangle against the couch to create a temporary enclosure, which he then filled with Marius' soft toys. As he leant over to lower her into the improvised playpen, her eyes went big and round, her lip curled, and he snatched her back out again ― at which point she squealed happily at him. He rolled his eyes at himself. God… such a _sucker!_

"Un!" she announced suddenly, wiping his annoyance clean away.

"You having a go with my name? Good girl! So close! It's said _Yan_, Schatje. Add a Y in front."

"Yun!"

"Goed zo!" He smiled, ruffled her hair, and was relieved to hear the door intercom go off and Nick's voice come through the grille. Jan buzzed him in and nearly sprinted to the front door, holding Angie in front of him like a bundle: hand over tum and hand under bum. "Nick! Morning. Come in. Here."

Nick was a bit startled to find his arms suddenly full of toddler. "Whoa! Gimme a sec! Oh, hey honey! Look who's so cheerful! Had a good night? You did? Great!" Nick grinned at him and looked him up and down. "She's kept you busy, huh?"

"Sorry, banned from showering thus far." He hadn't gotten past putting on boxers, yet. "Back shortly."

It took him five minutes to wash, dry, do teeth, jump into shirt and trousers and sprint back down the stairs, to see Nick following Angie around while she was giving him a kind of guided toddle tour. She pointed at the Tassimo coffee machine and babbled authoritatively. Then indicated the kitchen island, and shared some deep truths about it with Nick, who nodded seriously, keeping a respectful pace like he was following a museum curator. Jan chuckled. Angie had been much better company than the Bentons, and had been the only source of the halting conversation between them, before and after their Koninglowen host shock.

Angie waddled over to the fridge and pointed excitedly. "Yo-git."

"Yo-what? You want me to look?" Nick pulled the fridge door open to reveal the four shelves stacked with those damn yoghurt buckets and turned with a bewildered grin. "How much do you need?"

Jan sighed, hoping Nick didn't share this with the others, like he did with the sprinkles. "I was trying to win a landrover and Castle Yoghurts was running a competition. I filled in the online coupon, got an email saying I'd won, then this truck turns up. I didn't read the small print, apparently."

"Huh? So… you won a truck instead of a land rover?"

"No, I won the unreasonable amount of yoghurt delivered by the truck! When they say _a years' worth_, you hope that the deliveries are spaced out a little. Not so, apparently."

Nick bopped his head lightly against the hand holding the fridge door open, his shoulders shaking. Eventually he straightened up, shut the door and wiped his face with the back of his hand. "There's this great big black hole where your luck should be. Everyone around you – absorbing good luck. You? Yoghurt magnet."

"Hmmm." This was about as much as Jan was prepared to say. If he had no luck, it wasn't because it was being displaced outwards. His Dutch partner Frans hadn't been very lucky, dying in the line of duty. Simon wasn't very lucky, storming a room full of guns and winding up in a wheelchair. If Wilson hadn't followed him, he'd be dead, though. Jan shuddered and tried not to dwell on it as he ran around packing a day bag for Angie. "How was it staying with Hank?"

"Pretty cool. I helped him to turn his apartment back into a bachelor pad. How were your guests?"

"Hard work, Nick. I was friendly, I tried to give them space as a family, I told them to make themselves at home… but they didn't even talk to each other, let alone me."

"Maybe they were a little intimidated?" They got to Jan's Toyota and Nick buckled Angie in. "I mean, given that 'home' for them was a damp three-to-a-room firetrap downtown, spending the night in a super-tidy 4-bedroomed home in a gated community…."

"This little one wasn't intimidated," Jan chuckled. "She stuck her fists in the jam jar and spent half an hour doing splat art on my kitchen floor and fridge door, to the Bentons' total horror." Yes, she really had made herself at home. As if she were basking in the familiar…

…Nick met his eyes as they approached the traffic lights and voiced his exact thoughts. "Maybe that's what she's used to. _Your_ standard of living. Not Patrick Jones'?"

Nick's mind-meld conversational style and increasingly unsettling wesen insights were beginning to freak Jan out more than a little. "Are you still hot on your abduction theory?"

"No. But I still think we may be looking at a situation where Angie isn't particularly safe on a day-to-day basis. She acted like she was on home territory at your place, which is about as different from MacIsle House as you can get. Look, the feds called me back. They confirmed that a couple reported Cathy Jones as being taken away by their son in law in an unstable emotional state. Maybe it was their environment that she was used to? Local police dismissed the allegation as a malicious domestic dispute after a brief enquiry, but when you think of the state he let that apartment get into even before he disappeared…."

Jan nodded. However hard Jones may have been trying to give Angie a good life away from his in-laws, the environment was all wrong for her. "We'd better hope that the all-hospital bulletin turns up something helpful."

"Yeah. Any idea what this morning's Portland meet is about?"

"Squad change announcements." Jan pulled off the freeway towards Portland. "Wilkes was in a bad way yesterday and I doubt he's coming back to work soon. Whenever there's a change of Captaincy, the new guy gets a degree of choice of his immediate team when he takes over. So DeMarcos will be giving the whole 'holding the fort' peptalk, then saying who's moving where."

Nick pulled a face. DeMarcos' talks lasted forever. "Great. My moustache will have re-grown by the time he's done. I'd better get onto child services to see if we can get company for Angie today. Can't see her staying quiet, somehow."

**X x X**

After dropping Nick at Jan's place (and Jesus, _BIG_ place), Hank swung by the cornershop that Halston told him to visit to recover some CCTV footage. A bunch of guys had been taped working someone over in an alley. Not usually narc's 'thing' to look into, but apparently the footage caught a big hold-all, open, showing what looked like stacked bags of powder. That got their interest. And it particularly got Hank's interest because the alley was strangely close to MacIsle House.

He collected the tape from the guy behind the counter and headed over to Portland for the staff announcements. At a quarter before nine he was early, but Nick and Jan were there already. He wandered over, preferring their company right now to that of his colleagues. It wasn't just Halston getting him down, now. Part of him prayed he'd be on the transfer list to the new Captain of West Side, who was more likely than not to be Lieutenant Renard. No offence to Wilson, but anything that got him away from the toxic, narrow, "only action is fast action" mentality of the narc team had to be a good thing. He had a whole afternoon yesterday of the guys ripping into SVU with their slow-burn approach, not really appreciating that they had slow-burn situations to be dealing with.

Nick seemed patient: Jan's previous rookie hadn't been. Simon applied to narcotics to hang out with his hard-ass godfather, but got SVU as his second choice. It wasn't the right place for a Dirty Harry wannabe. Nick was way better suited. And smarter too. Hank grinned to himself as Nick bounced Angie on his forearm and got a shirt full of sprinkles tipped out of one of her little bunches.

"I didn't fill her with sugar, I promise." Jan murmured. "She just had a little fun with the box."

"Really? I think there might have been a little unsupervised eating. She won't stay still!"

Angie squealed loudly and bounced harder, using a grip on Nick's collar as her balancing point. They shushed her desperately between the three of them, Jan clearly and painfully aware of a sotto voce discussion between Renard, Wilson and DeMarcos, who surprised all of them by halting his head-ruffling and muttering to lay a light hand on Wilson's shoulder and squeeze it. Their urgent murmuring continued and Nick backed up with Angie, trying to remove the noise pollution before it became a severe irritant.

Angie had no such sense of occasion and lunged for Hank, startling all of them. It took a three-guy body grab to stop her tipping down out of the side of Nick's arm.

Hank looked at her sternly as he got a proper grip. "Less of that, baby girl! You trying to become one with the wood panelling or something?"

She giggled unrepentantly and ruffled his goatee.

"Don't do that. NOT dignified."

Something about his tone made her burst out laughing, and when she was happy, and full of sugar, she was LOUD. Just as Hank was about to run down to the car park with her, DeMarcos spun on his heel and roared.

"Hey! Trying to have a fuckin' conversation, here! If you can't silence the kid, get the hell out. I can't cope with that happy, noisy shit before nine in the morning!"

Jan stepped forward, his face hard as Nick took the now far-from-happy little girl round the corner and out of eyeshot. "Sir, that was unnecessary―"

"I'll tell you what's unnecessary, Vergeer ― you guys treating a squadroom like a kindergarten room. You are _cops_. Get Child Services to do their job, will you?"

Hank and Jan followed Nick round the corner, and Hank could see the rage coming off Nick in waves. It was a weird thing to see on such a good-natured face.

"He made me jump too, man. God, that guy... I kinda know why Portland detectives get paid peanuts now. It's so no-one has the funds to take out a hit on DeMarcos."

Jan ruffled the top of Angie's head, making half her head disappear under his palm. "He's not going to get away with that."

"We'll get him for that."

Hank tried lightening the tone. None of this was settling Angie. "Really? How much money you got?"

"About $150 right now, that isn't getting sucked right into bills."

"What do you think we could get for $250? A wedgie delivered down a dark alley?"

"Oh, I'd pay to see that. Or a Chinese burn. Or maybe a Dutch rub?"

Jan frowned. "What the hell's a Dutch rub? It sounds perverse, whatever it is."

"You get someone in a headlock, real tight, then rub your knuckles over the top of their head."

"Right." Jan frowned. "Why?"

Well… duh! "Because it hurts!"

"I can't see what's Dutch about that. Violence isn't the answer to this. I'd better go show our faces in the crowd. See you in a moment."

Hank rolled his eyes and shot Nick a weary look. "That's the kind of comment that gets him his 'humourless' rep, by the way."

Nick didn't have time to reply, sticking up for his partner, agreeing with him - whatever. DeMarcos' 'brave new world' speech started, and because Angie had gone quiet, hiding in Nick's shoulder socket, they shuffled quietly to the back of the group. There was the appropriately sad, yet totally unsurprised rumble as DeMarcos explained that Captain Wilkes was going to be off sick for the foreseeable future. And then a little compensatory lightening when Renard's promotion was announced. Some genuine applause followed this.

Then DeMarcos went through his list of officers who would be moving under Renard's new command. "Transfers... Sergeant Wu, Detective McPhee, Detective Cotter, Detective..."

Hank saw Wu's face and grinned, nudging Nick to take a peek. Wu was HAPPY. He looked like the sun had given the whole sky thing a miss this morning and decided to rise in his face instead. Wu's joy was comical enough that Hank didn't even mind so much that his name wasn't on the transfer list. Hell, Markham was leaving soon to get married and move to Denver. Maybe he could just apply straight for his Homicide position at West Side. DeMarcos got to the end of the list and the group broke up.

Much less joyful than Wu was Wilson, who pushed against the crowd, her face down, jaw set and eyes red. Jan went after her and Hank saw their conversation through the window of the double doors at the end of the corridor. Her swatting him away initially, then him putting his hands on her shoulders and her giving in to probably a night of no sleep and a moment of fragility. Hank looked away. He wasn't a great believer in gossip anyway, but now he'd seen them in a private moment for himself, he didn't give a crap what other people said about them having a 'thing'. That was a comfort hug he saw. Not a favourites-hug. Not a secret relationship hug.

Next to him, Nick's cell went off and he managed to rummage for it without losing any grip on Angie. Hank wasn't convinced that holding the little girl underarm like a football was the done thing, but she seemed happy enough. Nick flinched through several minutes of indistinct babbling, then hung up.

"Man, is 'goodbye' not in your vocabulary?"

"Are we back to the social mores?"

Hank rolled his eyes. "Is there any point? No. What news?"

"That was Jan's nursely stalker, Hayley. A guy got admitted Saturday night with a head injury and a broken arm, among other problems, but refused to be put under. He kept yelling about Yankees being left alone. He had a bad reaction to the anaesthetic and only just come round properly in the last hour."

"Yankees…. Angie…?" Hank mused. "It's a stretch, but I guess you could make that mistake if someone's slurring. Ok, maybe the guy could be Jones."

"Griffin, you coming or what? We're a man down now, with Cotter moving over." Halston was at the doors heading down to the car park. "Jesus, they ain't even subtle."

Hank wondered what the hell he was on about until he followed Halston's gaze down the hall, where Jan had just let go of Wilson, and they were pushing back through the doors into the corridor, Wilson looking much more composed. One thing about Jan, Hank reflected: he did the calming thing well.

: : : : :

Nick was surprised at the sudden shake-up of responsibilities. Jan was to go to the hospital, alone, to talk to Jones. Nick presumed that this meant he was continuing Angie duties, given that they still hadn't found anyone to look after her. Jan strode off, promising to call with an update as soon as he had one.

Once Jan was gone, Wilson took Angie from him. "Nick, could you go back to Gresham with Hank and Jack and look over the tapes?"

He frowned. Not that he was displeased about working further with Hank, but… "Is that a three-man job?"

"Yes, actually. Kendricks and Jack need to be making informant calls about the size of the stash found. You and Hank need to be taking freeze-frames from the CCTV and running them through the database for IDs so we can run down their associates. If the shots aren't clear enough for a scan, we'll probably need your drawing skills and a picture flash at a few choice people."

Nick gestured at Angie. "What about…."

"This little one's coming with us for now, until I get hold of child services to remind them about division of labour," Wilson said, giving the little girl a cuddle.

'Us' turned out to be her and Captain Renard. It would take Nick a little while to remember not to call him Lieutenant anymore. The Captain said nothing as the confused infant was passed to him to hold, but the set of his shoulders just screamed '_this is a new suit!'_

"Sean, could you take her down to the car? Jan said he'd leave the seat in the carpark office. And fix her a snack, if you can find one. She's trying to eat your tie."

"Of course," Renard agreed smoothly, gently removing his probably-new tie from the little girl's dribbly grip. _New suit! _His shoulders repeated, hysterically.

Nick watched her go, looking happy enough as she peeked over Renard's shoulder, but she gave him nervous little wave anyway. He noted with a grin that as soon as Renard was out of Wilson's eyeshot, he hastily passed Angie to Wu, who took to her lively bouncing a little more naturally. Or maybe he was just still high on team-Renard joy.

"Oh," Wilson finished, "and guys, if your informant leads go anywhere useful, take Nick out with you."

Halston threw his hands up before apparently remembering he was talking to a Captain. "Ma'am, he's just a―"

"He's a detective, like you. And if you have to do a raid, you are not going in under complement. Is that understood? You of all people should know the dangers of that." Wilson cocked her head at Halston warningly, and wisely he backed off.

Nick followed Hank out to the carpark to get a lift to Gresham, slightly excited at the possibility of taking part in a raid ― but purely as variety from the deskwork and babysitting. Kicking down lots of doors wasn't really his idea of a good time in the long run.

**X x X**

Jan pushed Jones' door open and saw him trying to get himself upright enough to pour some water. His face wasn't in too bad a state, but he'd clearly either badly bruised his ribs or injured some back muscles because the effort of getting more than a couple of inches off the bed made him sweat, yelp, then woge to Reinigen. He bent over to help with the water just as the guy shifted and the eye contact nearly sent the guy's pulse directly into the 120bpm range.

Jan stood back as nurses raced in and slipped fresh painkiller into his IV, taking his vitals and so on, and it was only after he'd stood there for a few minutes in the background, his arms folded, waiting patiently, that Jones calmed down and the nurses left the room.

"You're a Koninglowen!" Jones spluttered, wild-eyed.

"I'm Acting Lieutenant Vergeer in this context, Mr Jones. By the way, I don't woge unless I feel the need to hurry someone along a little. Shall we concentrate on you and Angie?"

"Where is she? Is she ok?"

"She's absolutely fine. You have a lovely little girl."

"Oh thank God. thank..." Jones pulled a trembling hand through matted hair. "Can I see her?"

"Not just yet, I'm afraid." Jan suspected that this conversation was going to be a formality just to confirm that Angie's unattended Saturday night trauma was beyond Jones' control, but even once that was ascertained, they still had to look at care arrangements. It looked like Jones' world of domesticity had fallen apart over the last few days, at least.

"Is this about leaving her alone? I would _never_ leave her alone... I got dragged into something and woke up here, then I was trying to tell them that I had a little girl in danger, and then they put me under and―"

"Ease down," Jan murmured. "I'm not here to give you a hard time. Your pulse is starting to fly again and you're heading for a fully visible woge. Take a breath."

They sat in silence for a few moments while Jones got himself back together.

"Ok. Better. Thanks."

"Good. There's a few things I need to ask you. I've got a pretty good idea of what happened, but I need to hear it all from you, alright? First ― how did she end up alone overnight?"

"Stupid, selfish, ignorant neighbours is how. And I'm not just talking about the guys that smacked the hell out of me. I'm talking about the people who must have heard Angie crying from dinnertime onwards till you found her in the morning and did nothing about it. Why didn't the police or child services know about this on Saturday?"

Jan was assured by the guy's priorities: he was concerned about Angie being left alone, not about being in trouble with child services. "She was ok. Traumatised, obviously, but not too dehydrated, and she bounced back quickly. Happily, my partner is very adept looking after little children. She took to him well."

"Good. That's good." Jones looked dazed.

"So why don't you tell me about these guys?" Jan pressed. "Human?"

Jones tried shifting up in bed, flinching sharply as he moved. "As far as I could tell, yes. Human assholes. From room 413. Always making a hell of a lot of noise. Shoving us in the lift. Trying to scare Angie by pulling faces at her when they pass ― and they always succeed ― and breaking my mailbox at least twice. I never rise to it, you know. I've got her to think about."

"So you've kept a low profile."

"Tried to," Jones agreed wearily. "On Saturday, we were trying to have dinner when the fire alarm went off. I didn't smell any smoke, so I went out to the main landing to see what the situation was, because the door going out to our floor fire escape is bolted and only the little windows open in our apartment."

"Hmm." Jan sensed harsher words for the building super coming up. He'd have a word with PDFD, get them to order a safety order on the whole building. It was a firetrap. And the arsonist was sneaky - at Sangstrom house, he'd set the alarm off the day before he set the blaze to see which floors cleared the building the fastest. "What time was this?"

"About five or so."

Jan made a note. "Ok. And then...?"

"On my way back to our apartment, I heard the usual yelling and banging from 413 and kept my head low as I went by. But their door was partially open and it was yanked fully open by some guy who screamed for help, then got kicked to the floor. Everything was smashed up in there. Everything but some kind of weird chemical kit. There was white powder everywhere. I knew they weren't just going to let me witness that so I sprinted to our apartment to barricade and call 911, but then one of them gave me a smack round the head."

"Did it knock you out?"

"Nearly." Jones picked at the edge of his blanket, his eyes filling. "I didn't go out all the way, but I couldn't feel my arms either, so I played dead when they pulled me into the lift. They weren't exactly worried about the fire alarm, what with the lack of smoke. I figured they'd just dump me somewhere, and someone would go check on Angie because she'd be crying, and I thought I'd call 911 once they'd disappeared. They'd just tossed me into one of the garbage pails in the alley, one of the small ones, but my arm jerked when my elbow hit something hard on impact."

Jan sighed for him. "And then they tried to make sure you couldn't tell anyone what you saw."

"They beat the crap out of me. Like the guy on the floor in their apartment."

"Did you recognise him?"

"Didn't get time to see," Jones said bleakly. "Maybe they turned on each other."

Jan nodded. One of the few advantages he had over some of the other guys was that he was a natural lie detector. He could hear the pulse picking up, smell the sweat and the cortisone as stress took over, and this guy ― while completely miserable ― was telling the truth. "Do you know the name of the paper shop?"

Jones screwed his face up trying to remember. "Kam's? Uh... Kam-something."

Score. Jan almost smiled - a result for Jones' case, and potentially a push forward on Hank's as well. "Your assault was captured on CCTV footage. If we can't get IDs from freeze-frame shots, would you be happy to do a line up, once you've recovered?"

"Oh yeah. It'll be easy. They're distinctively ugly bastards."

"Give me two minutes." Jan went out into the corridor and updated Wilson. She was incredibly relieved: not just about the double-strike, but also the fact that she'd be able to hand back the little girl taking her cupboard apart.

"... Not that she's not cute. But she's a little destructive. You're coming back here soon, right?"

Jan grinned hugely to realise that Wilson still had Angie. "You got the brush-off from Cleo, didn't you?"

"No!... no. She made a number of good points about consistent childcare. Don't you dare chuckle at me, Jan! And don't get smug. You've got her company one last night before she goes home to Daddy. If he's well enough. But that's the limit. I think a _small_ part of Cleo realises that we're a police department rather than a foster home."

Jan reckoned he could deal with one last night of infant company. Besides, since the Bentons were unlikely to return, and Nick could move back in. "Alright, Ma'am. My recommendations to Cleo's team is going to be to restore custody to Jones, but with supportive monitoring."

"Good call. Ok, I'll catch you later. And Jan… thanks."

"For what?"

"You know damn well what! For earlier!"

Oh, that. "You're welcome, Helen." He pocketed his cell and returned to Jones' room. The guy was looking a lot brighter. "Ok Patrick, child services will bring Angie tomorrow. I think it's best that she sees you when you're a little more repaired. She'll stay with me tonight and you can return home with her tomorrow."

Jones shook his hand silently. He had a good, strong grip: a guy that used to spend a reasonable amount of time in the gym. Jan was curious about their whole set-up. "So, that's the police part. The second issue is… are you coping? Because we couldn't find any clean clothes for her anywhere before we left, and the place was a… tip."

Jones went red. "Uh... yeah. That's embarrassing. I got this big, big job so that we could get a deposit for a better place, but I had to work 24/7 to get the work done and make good on the contract. I'm all done now, but the cleaning, the hygiene... went a little to pot while I was finishing up."

"What do you do?"

"I'm an architect. I'm making decent money again, but it took a couple of months to rebuild a client base after we moved. And I spent nearly every damn penny I possess on the court case to get custody of Angie, hence our current shithole of an apartment. Things are starting to look a little better, though."

"So… she's not your daughter?"

"Step-daughter. She's lowen." Jones chuckled nervously. "That's going to be interesting when she becomes a teenager."

Jan blinked. "Angie's very little. Did her biological father take off, or something?"

"You're probably thinking 'fast work', huh? Wondering how I moved in there? Well, it wasn't quite like that. Angie's father was a one-night-stand deadbeat. He's not been involved at all in anything. Angie's mom and I had been involved off and on since we were sixteen and I was completely in love with her. Always had been. But because of what I am, her parents weren't quite so much in love with me. We got better at dealing with them, over the years, Tina and I, picking our battles. Angie is officially 'Cathy'. We married when Angie was a few weeks old."

Jan winced at the use of the past tense. "What happened to Tina?"

"Her car got rolled by a driver in a jeep who was driving under the influence. She didn't make it. I got depression. But I was functioning, you know? I was going through the motions with Angie and did a good job of faking happy for her, but inside I was a total zombie and I didn't have the energy to stop Tina's parents from interfering with Angie's upbringing. To them, my depression was proof that I wasn't strong enough for Angie, that I'd never been good enough for Tina, and we had this massive custody battle, even though I was halfway through an adoption process at the time. I won custody, but they found other ways of making my life a misery. So we moved without telling them and we've been lying low ever since."

That all made a great deal of sense, now. Except for the multiple IDs he'd found in the cabinet drawer. "I came up with a lot of bills under different names."

"And different addresses and times," Jones agreed. "They're all a couple of years old. When I was earning serious money, I could afford to help my friends out when they were down on their luck. I kept the bills in case I needed their contact details one day for help myself."

"And are any of them going to help you? Because you can't keep doing 24/7 jobs to get a new deposit."

"Two of them called me back," Jones said, smiling at last. "I've got a loan coming. Everything should… hopefully… be ok."

Jan got to his feet. "It's good to know that Angie's going back to the life she's used to. Get another coffee machine. She seems to like those."

"She created a few kitchen lakes with our last one."

"I'll bet. We'll bring her round tomorrow morning. Get some rest, ok? Or they won't let you out."

**X x X**

"Nick, I can promise you, this is not what I had in mind!"

"I guessed that much!" Nick pressed himself down against the kitchen floor, his hands over the back of his head as the shots fired from the front room bounced off the chipboard surfaces and sprayed crap everywhere. He flinched as a bullet exploded spice jars on an open-fronted shelf to his right. He and Hank were clean out of defensive ammo: it was just Halston's occasional pops going off that gave the impression of being armed, now. Kendricks was out cold.

The lead that had brought them to this scabby apartment, south of Gresham, was just supposed to be a lead. Check out the scene where another body had been found dead, associated chemically with the death in 413 at MacIsle House. Except apparently the stash kept here was worth the perps coming back for: cops or no cops.

Halston called over to them from the cowering hole he and Kendricks were sharing, behind an ancient oven on the other side of the kitchen; lead-painted iron, with curl-wire hobs. "Can you get to the window? We'll try the fire escape."

Nick gulped as he looked over to the window. It was right in range of the bullets pelting into the room. No fucking way. He wasn't suicidal. "Bad plan!"

"Burkhardt, you're smaller, you're faster, you can get out quickest and get help. Stop being a girl like your partner and get the hell over to that window!"

Nick shrugged. He'd spent most of his teenage years having bigger, older guys threatening to accuse him of cowardice unless he did something dangerous and dumb. He never did them. And wouldn't start now.

"Burkhardt! You going to step up, or what?"

"I'll step up with something else! Shut the hell up and let me focus!"

Hank gave him a small, sideways smile. "Was worried you'd rise to that for a moment, man."

"Uh uh."

A shot glanced off the cooker, bouncing off the sticky lino, barely avoiding a batch of sauces on the bottom open shelf. They really didn't need any more glass on the floor. Then everything went quiet on the perp side, except for low, urgent murmuring. From the rate of fire, Nick guessed that they were also running out of ammo. He could really do with Jan right now: they were talking in low voices but he was pretty sure that the big guy would pick it all up. Another shot, bouncing again off the cooker.

Ok - so maybe he needed to re-enact operation Benji ― draw the perps in so they could take them down on equal terms, rather than be sitting ducks. Nick grabbed the bottle of chili sauce and inspected it. It was thick, red stuff, like Sambal. Not very realistic, but it only needed to be visible between his fingers for a second or two. He held his breath to fake 'pale', splashed the sauce over his front, slapped his hand over the sauce, and at the next shot...

"AGGGHH!"

"Nick!" Hank yelled, doing a good job.

Halston had clearly been staring elsewhere during the stunt preparation cause there was genuine panic in his voice as Nick flicked his eyes up and flopped face down on the lino. "C'mon, kid!"

Nick gave Halston a brisk, subtle wink. Not strategic to leave him in the dark. Halston flipped him the bird but smiled in relief, seeing where this was going. The guys next door had a more urgent discussion. Nick wished they'd hurry the hell up. The sauce was something like ten times more evil than Tabasco and was burning the skin on his hand and through his shirt.

"They're still armed!"

"They're two down and that's half a mill in that cupboard!"

One of them made up their minds way faster than any of them could've anticipated and before Nick knew it, he was being dragged into the front room by the back of his jacket, picking up some carpet burns to go along with his spice burns. He carried on playing nearly-dead for a moment. He needed more room to move. From Hank and Halston's lack of immediate fight, he guessed that there was a gun pointing either at his head, or at theirs.

He offered a few groggy groans as the guy straddled him, flipped him onto his back, then cracked him round the face with something hard. He managed to remain pliant, rolling with it, but keeping his hand 'flopped' on his front where his injury wasn't. Hank and Halston dutifully yelled in the background about smacking him around while he was already down.

"Faking?"

"Maybe. Shoot again and find out."

Ok, drama club over. Nick snapped his knees back to his chest and threw his legs out like pistons, driving them into slap-guy's groin. He doubled up, and in the split second of the other perp staring, shocked, Hank and Halston were all over both of them, driving them to the ground and cuffing them.

It took him a moment to get up. The slap was pretty hard. Halston reached down and gave him a hand. Then found him a clean-ish cloth. Nick didn't quite know what to do with it till Halston pressed it against his eyebrow and pulled it away bloody.

"Ah, it won't need stitches. Maybe a little tape. You've got a hard head, kid. And some good moves. Sure you don't want to sign up for narc?"

Nick just stared at Halston in disbelief. A moment ago, he'd been goading him into trying to bust open the window in the direct line of gunfire. That kind of action was not his desire in signing up as a detective. Solving stuff, with the risk of some dangerous activity on the side ― _that_ was why he became a detective. And he was quite happy with his 'big girl' partner. Thanks.

"Suit yourself. Tell us if you change your mind."

Nick grunted and went back to check on Kendricks while Hank and Halston led the perps out.

From the moment he got back to the precinct, all evening, and the next morning at breakfast, he got the Brother hen treatment from Jan. It was something that theoretically he thought he would find quite annoying, but he didn't. At all. He couldn't ever remember Aunt Marie bringing a beer to the couch, just for example, and tonight he had his spare double bed back. And he got majorly fussed by Angie, who kept hugging his head and patting him.

They both felt a little choked as they handed Angie back to Pat Jones. The love was so clearly all there on both sides, Jones quietly crying into her hair, Angie yelling his name happily over and over again. And one of Jones' friends had pitched up to give him a lift home and help out a little while.

They'd backed away to give them a little privacy but as they got to the door, Nick felt a tug on the tip of his finger. He glanced down. She'd similarly halted Jan by trying to anchor his leg with her little arm round his kneecap.

"Bye Nik! Bye Yun!"

Ok... So... One more cuddle each, and they left.

There was a weird kind of anti-climax at Gresham for the first half hour. The little girl was in their lives a mere two days, and now their desk felt weird without a little person on top, demolishing things.

"Is this normal?" Nick asked. "The post-case blues, I mean?"

"I'm afraid so. The good news is that it doesn't last as long as the better feeling of getting the right result."

"Good." Nick didn't know what else to say, really.

Then Hank and Halston trotted downstairs. Halston, clean-shaven and irritable, gave him a curt nod before disappearing into the men's room. Hank had ditched the black leather trench and wore a long-sleeved teeshirt instead of a tight wool polo. His sideburns had also been shortened.

Nick sniggered. "I see the goatee survived the induction chat with Wilson."

"Barely! Jeez. Stern isn't the word for her. It was only when I explained that it was actually a deliberate, long-term style choice that she backed off. We compromised on a clothing adjustment."

"What did she say?"

"Not telling, man."

"Oh come on! She was brutal with us, too."

Hank sighed almightily. "Fine. She said I looked like Isaac Hayes let loose in the costume department for 'the Matrix'."

Jan grinned hugely. "Isaac Hayes as in the guy who played―"

Nick opened his mouth, then suddenly felt a muffling hand over it.

"You squeak 'Shaft' at me again, and you can find yourself a new buddy."

Wilson's door banged open in the corner of the office and she appeared in the doorway, red-faced. "Jan, Nick... Hank... could you step into my office please?"

Nick stood with some trepidation. Jan looked completely relaxed, but this told him nothing. Hank looked unnerved and followed them both in. A Wilson roaring was not easily withstood. But Nick had no idea what they might have done wrong. Jan closed the door behind them all and gazed down benevolently.

"Gentlemen... I got a call this morning from Tony DeMarcos. He was _not_ in a good mood. You know why? Because he was woken at dawn by a 60-strong gospel choir congregating and performing exclusively on his lawn."

"What did they sing?"

"I didn't ask him that, Nick!"

"Sorry, Ma'am."

Wilson gathered herself. "I have assured him that MY boys would have had no part in such an infantile, neatly-executed... fiendish..."

Nick pursed his lips and felt his attempts not to giggle vanish into an epic fail: his laughter kept rising like ill-suppressed coughs. Hank's enjoyment of the mental image was more overt.

"―Oh man... did that get videoed? Please tell me that's online somewhere."

"It's gone viral, hence DeMarcos' wild displeasure." Wilson looked at them darkly. "Nick, Hank, you can be excused. Clearly this is all just hilarious news to you."

They tumbled from the room, relieved and disappointed all at the same time, wanting to hear Jan's cross-examination. He looked purer than the driven snow, yet totally unsurprised all at the same time.

"Poor DeMarcos," Hank said mournfully, "having to put up with all that happy, noisy shit before nine in the morning."

They stared at each other and looked over to Wilson's office, where Jan was remonstrating politely, and she was getting angrier and angrier.

"No way…that was Jan?"

Nick shrugged helplessly. "He's a man of means. He can make stuff happen. Let's google it."

It took them about thirty seconds to find the footage because it was trending on the top five videostreams, under 'faithful flashmob'. Inept singers of all creeds and ages, sung Hallelujah and clapped joyfully on DeMarcos' front yard. The man himself leant apoplectically out of the window, screaming abuse, but barely able to make himself heard. His neighbours were waking up too, but they didn't seem to mind, oddly.

"What the hell am I supposed to tell him, Jan?" Wilson yelled, and Jan rumbled something placating back at her. Whatever it was, didn't work. "You are _so_ lucky he offends too many people to remember what he's said to them! You can take your non-violent principles and get out of my sight till DeMarcos has come and gone again!"

Jan trotted out, looking appropriately tongue-lashed, but with a glint in his eyes.

"Was it you?" Nick asked.

"Would I do such a fiendish, neatly-executed thing?" Jan flicked them a wicked grin. "I need to go and hide under a rock for a day or so, though. See you later, gents."

Hank caught his arm lightly. "Was it worth it?"

"Oh, god, yes."

They watched him pretend to slink off in heart-broken disgrace, and Nick was pleased to see Hank make himself temporarily comfortable in Jan's seat.

"Mind if I hit desk down here a little while?"

Nick winced. "Things a little awkward for you upstairs?"

"Not specially." Hank gave him a wry smile. "But it's just part of the trouble with narcotics. There's no damn sense of humour up there."


	7. Each to their own (part 1)

**Hi all… thanks for the wonderful reviews again. Really kind of you to put so much effort into saying which bits you enjoyed. It really helps, and I do take ideas of what you'd 'like to see' into consideration when I plan future stories. So thanks a million! I hope you enjoy this two-parter. It kind of gives background (mostly in second part) about the whole Jan versus Halston war, and features a certain very embarrassing accident….**

**Many thanks for General Z for tossing me the plot bunny. You know which one ;)**

**X x X**

"Ah… Jan? I'm really sorry but I'm running a little late," Nick sprinted down to his car as he spoke, taking his apartment steps two at a time, trying to ignore that annoying soggy feeling down his front.

"It's fine. We've got a case transfer from West Side homicide, but haven't been given the papers yet. What's up? Had a bad start?"

"You could say that. My iron exploded."

"Good God. Are you alright? Not burned?"

Nick smiled the pal on the other end of the line. It was nice to get the concern, and not the lecture about overloading his plug sockets. "I'm fine. Just a little shocked and with a nice big mess to clear up later. I'll get in as soon as I can."

"No real rush. I'm wading through mediation cases at the moment, and Captain Wilson's not getting in until ten or so. She's visiting Wilkes."

Nick suffered a moment of anxiety. He wasn't _entirely_ sure the sick Captain had remained asleep while he was trying to load the goodies into his bedside locker last night, however quiet he tried to be, and they were just ever-so-slightly overstepping the rank line going to see him in the first place. "Are we going to get into trouble for 'Operation Snack' if he tells her about it?"

"I shouldn't think so. Wilkes is pretty laid back."

"Yeah, but Wilson isn't!"

"If there are any issues, I'll take one for the team, alright? I've got a horrible pile of reading to get through. See you in a while, Nick."

Nick hung up and was about to put his cell away when he got an incoming call from an unknown number.

"Burkhardt."

"Nick, I'm so sorry but I'm stuck and I need some help."

The female voice at the other end of the line was tearful, making it hard to place. There were few women in his life right now, so he deduced: Captain Wilson would only call Jan if she were in dire straits; Aunt Marie didn't 'do' tears, only clips round ears; Cleo Granger from Child Services was a frequently dialled number and wouldn't come up as unknown; and Dula would never apologise if she needed help, ditto the Phoebes, which left...

"Abi?"

"Yeah, it's Abi. I hung onto your card after the court case. I'm so sorry, you must have _so_ many other better things to do, but I've got an appointment in a half hour at Portland General. I've been late once already because my cab didn't show up, and now I can't… I can't…"

Nick kept his voice slow, hoping to have the same effect on her pulse. "Don't worry about calling me. Just take some deep breaths."

There were a few moments of quiet at the other end of the line, then he heard a muffled shout and sob-like panting. Alarming. He sat forward in his seat and disengaged his parking brake, his foot on the main brake, still. "Alright Abi, enough deep breaths. Talk to me… what's wrong?"

"Sorry… that was a back spasm."

"Not getting any better?" Nick winced for her. He knew how much that hurt. "Where are you? Are you at home?"

"No, off Ellis Avenue at the Mount Hood exit on the freeway. I stubbed my foot on the way down to my car and thought I was ok ― I've been doing a lot better lately ― but the shock must have set off muscles in my back because it started seizing up on me and I had to pull over. I'm so sorry to call for this. I've left messages for everyone ― Jules, Brianne..."

"Call the hospital and tell them you're en-route. Don't let them cross you off their list, alright? I'll be with you as soon as I can. Just try to relax until I get there."

Nick made it to her car in about five minutes, parked up, helped her out of her driver's seat and guided her little Suzuki into a more discreet place before locking up and going back to her with the keys. She looked incredibly sorry: not for herself, but for being a 'pest'. Nick put an arm round her waist and walked her slowly back to his car. "Are you getting help?"

"Jules from upstairs has been so sweet, but … I think people are finding my immobility a little high-maintenance." She tried a rueful smile, but her eyes filled up.

Feeling like a burden when already feeling fragile was one of the worst emotional combinations. She dipped her head trying to conceal how upset she was, so he pulled her into a very careful hug, which she eased into gratefully. Eventually she peeled out of it, looking a little brighter, if a little wet-faced.

"Thanks. For, like, the millionth time."

"Let's get you to your appointment, huh? Make sure they give you a decent prescription." He had to keep her propped up against the back door as he chucked a load of crap from the front passenger footwell into a plastic bag, feeling vaguely embarrassed about treating his car like a mobile bin. He was about to help her into the seat when a silver VW Golf pulled up behind and a tall, stern-looking guy in a suit tore himself out of the driver's seat and marched over, followed by a familiar… oh god, _so_ familiar red-head with a neck-length bob.

He'd last seen Juliette Silverton shivering on a sidewalk, giving a detailed, calm description of a hit and run incident despite being in a significant degree of shock. He wrote her name down once and it had taken mythical proportions of beauty in his mind. Nick's pulse picked up a bongo beat watching her run after the stern guy as he approached Nick's car.

"Dale... we've got plenty of time to get there..."

"We did," Dale called back over his shoulder. "Not so much now! Come on then, Abi. Let's move. Oh dear. Over-stretching your limits again?"

Dale's tone snapped Nick from his reverie. Dale spoke with a smile, but Nick recognised the tight, barely contained irritation on his face as the international male expression of '_I hate my girlfriend's friend'. _Nick knew he'd had cause to wear that expression himself a few times, thanks to Ava's semi-alcoholic BBFs back in the day, but he happened to like Abi and bridled on her behalf at the patronising tone.

Abi did a good job keeping her voice even and dignified. "I've been taking it very steady and driving again for a week, but my back seized up."

"Sure, no one can blame you for sending out an SOS ― that's what friends are for ― but when you do that, you need to stick around for the results."

"Dale!" the red-head chided lightly. "Look, don't even worry about it, Abi. We called back to say we'd got your message but you were engaged. I should've texted. Not your fault. Shall we get to the car?"

Juliette nudged Dale out of the way and led Abi back to the VW. Nick liked her for being genuinely warm about it. She was a few years older than Abi, and her big sister streak was showing. So, the 'J' who'd been dropping off local papers at Abi's place to help her recognise the maybe-famous guy that assaulted her all those weeks ago… was Juliette Silverton. Small world.

Abi paused at the car door and looked back at him, mouthing 'thank you' before hesitantly folding herself into the front seat. Nick flicked a wave back at her. He had her number: he'd text her later. See how she was doing, and if she needed a lift home from the hospital after her appointment. He could probably pick her up on his lunch break, or something, if they had little momentum on whatever case West Side handed over.

Dale unexpectedly smiled and shook his hand while Juliette was buckling Abi in. "Thanks for stopping. That's very decent of you."

Nick kept things friendly but felt the need to make a point that Abi was no 'damsel'. "Oh, I didn't stop. She called me and I was happy to come. She was very brave and brilliant witness."

"You're a cop?"

"I knew I recognised you!" Juliette beamed at him as she jogged back over to collect Dale. "The hit and run, right? You were first on scene. It was so _sweet_ of you to do this off-duty."

"Actually, I'm on duty." She looked confused, then he remembered he'd still been in uniform when taking her statement. "Oh, right… yeah. I made detective a couple of months ago, hence the new plain clothes 'uniform'."

"Congratulations! Oh ― So…. _you're_ detective Burkhardt? The guy that took Abi's trash out?"

"That's me!" Nick wondered if his helpless grin looked as goofy as it felt. Judging by Dale's increasingly irked expression, it probably did.

"I think you made her year, doing that. I think you pretty much single-handed reversed her opinion of cops. As you did with me."

"Thanks." Her wink made him pink and weirdly bashful.

"Let's let this good Samaritan go back to work, then," Dale cut in, pulling Juliette back to the car by her elbow. "Thank you, officer!"

"Thanks again!" Juliette called over her shoulder as she was hauled away, and something both protective and jealous in Nick seethed at Dale's proprietorial grip on her arm. He was pleased to see her pull her arm free firmly, giving him a stern look as she got into the car. She didn't take any crap. Nick liked that. He watched as the VW pulled into traffic, not knowing when or how he'd see her again without inordinately hovering around Abi, which would be unprofessional, and without bumping into Dale again, which could lead to him being unprofessional. No plans suggested themselves. Sighing slightly to himself, he got back into his car and drove over to Gresham.

**X x X**

Stepping out of the lift, Helen saw that the lights were dimmed in Steve's room and that he was propped up a little, dozing uneasily under the blast from a nearby fan. He was off the continued oxygen supply and the hand-held mask with the valve was loosely gripped in his left hand for him to use when he needed it. He hadn't been awake the last couple of times she'd been to see him and she didn't know whether to wake him, or let him get his sleep. He looked beyond exhausted. At his doorway, she slipped her shoes off and crept in as quietly as she could.

Steve gave a cough which bounced him against his bed, making him groan quietly in his sleep. He still sounded like he was trying to breathe through hot smoke and spluttered for a few moments, rubbing his chest drowsily. She sat in the chair by his bed, prised his hand from his chest and held it in hers, resting her face on the edge of the mattress. Lack of sleep was getting to her, a little. She closed her eyes and pictured the 'real' Steve: his wicked grin before snatching her sandwich; his ability, even at fifty-two to outsprint perps who made the mistake of thinking he'd rusted behind a Captain's desk; his compassion for officers who'd got themselves into schtick. It was a good tactic. She'd kept her grit together pretty well over the last couple of weeks using it.

She felt movement in her hand. Very slight, and then Steve changed his grip to interlace his fingers with hers. She looked up at him as he pulled his eyes open and gave her a lopsided smile. "God it's good to see you, Helen."

Hearing him speak was too big a relief for words. She was fully up on the bed and hugging him before she knew it, though it took a moment or so for him to get his arms round her to reciprocate. He was still blazing hot, warming her intensely through her shirt, but they stayed that way for a minute or two, her face resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Her eyes stopped stinging and she got a grip, swatting his arm lightly. "You scared the _crap_ out of me, Wilkes!"

"Like you've never done that to me before!" He tightened his grip, slightly.

"Never quite on the same scale."

He cocked a brow at her. "If you say so. But between you, me and these glassy walls, we both know you've had your own little maniac moments."

He sounded so hoarse and hesitant, still. She barely dared ask how he was doing. Steve gave her the update, saved her from wondering how to ask without sounding facile.

"The oncologist came round this morning. There's good news prognosis-wise. The cancer's really early stage and in a limited area. He's pretty confident they can smack it out with radiotherapy within a few months."

"Oh thank God." Helen nearly released a great sigh of relief but then saw the big 'but' in his face. "There's a problem though, isn't there?"

"Yeah. My immunity's already shot. The infection's gone to my chest as well, now and I have to be a lot stronger before they can start the… treat―" He broke off to splutter, putting his hand over his mouth, bless him, then gave another body-bouncing cough which she could feel snarling right through him and rattling around his throat, making him sound choked. "Th― they've started me on a different course of antibiotics. Benzicillin, I think. They're pretty vicious. Hopefully it'll knock the infection on the head, and..."

He gave way to a vicious coughing fit that had her sitting up and snatching for his hand-held mask, holding it in place for a few minutes and threading her other hand through his hair while he lay on his side, recovering, eyes closed, breathing hard. She towelled the sweat off.

"Thanks, Helen."

"I don't think you're supposed to be talking."

"Ah, stop it. The next person to say that to me… present company excepted, of course… gets a hot traffic cone up their ass. You know... the worst problem? I'm bored... shitless. Apart from some pretty good books Renard dropped off for me and some fun smuggle-theatre last night, there's little to keep my mind focussed between your visits."

"I didn't realise you knew I was here."

"Oh, I knew. I just couldn't do much about it." Steve flicked a furtive gaze over to the nurses' bank outside the room's window. "Anyone there?"

Helen looked. "Not at the moment." Then looked back to see him produce a tube from under his sheet, from which he withdrew a tiny cork and slurped several mouthfuls of something pink. "What the hell is that?"

His eyes glinted. "Secret smoothie supply. The pouch is hidden under the clipboard stand at the bottom of the bed."

"That's a long, long straw!"

"They thought of _everything_. They even got me a pack of antiseptic wipes to clean the spoon that goes with the yoghurt they gave me."

"They?" Helen frowned for a second, but there was only one likely ringleader: yoghurt plus generosity plus extreme preparation equalled Jan. She sighed. "Most guys know to give a Captain privacy at times like this."

"Nah, I appreciated the thought and I felt a lot better for taking part in something a little sneaky. The only problem I had with their little snack intervention was trying to feign sleep while they snuck supplies in. I'm sure I nearly giggled out loud and I damn near laughed myself into a fit once they'd gone."

"Won't all that stuff go off outside of a fridge?"

"Really, they think of everything!" Steve indicated his bedside locker with a tired but cheerful nod.

She went round the other side of the bed and opened the locker to see the mini-fridge from Jan's Spyder plugged in through a hole in the back. The fridge held two tubs of yoghurt and five of a 6-pack of smoothie pouches. She grinned in spite of herself. "Dare I ask how they got this in here?"

"It was a black-ops job. Jan faked a claustrophobic panic attack coming out of the lift, chest-grabbing and hyperventilating, and... what's the name of the younger guy? Dark hair, good with little children?"

"Nick Burkhardt."

"While all the nurses ― and I mean ALL of them, at the same time ― were shirt-loosening, back-rubbing, soothing, and getting Jan to breathe into a paper bag, Nick crawled commando-style behind the bed getting everything set up." Steve chuckled and sucked on his smoothie straw. "They're not afraid to sacrifice their dignity for a bigger cause, are they?"

"_What_ dignity?" Helen laughed. But it was nice to have at least two guys under her that didn't creak under the weight of their own ego. She wished she could say the same of the narcotics team. Hank, the only approachable one, had transferred over to Renard's homicide team at West Side to replace newly-married Markham.

"On a serious note," Steve said suddenly, "How has Tony been?"

"He's trying."

"Of course he is. He's Tony DeMarcos. He's very, _very _trying."

"Agreed, but genuinely, he's making an effort. He's being about... 30% less of an ass, and to be fair, he asks about you pretty often." She sighed and settled next to him on the bed, legs out, ankles crossed. "He still hasn't forgiven us for medically retiring Simon Colman."

"I'm not sure _I've_ forgiven us for that, to be honest. So much for trying to cut the guy a little slack. He's acted like a shit since we laid him off. You'd have thought we _had_ actually fired him. It's one of those very few occasions where I have to admit that Tony probably had the right idea. Not to mention the fact that Simon's desperado stunts nearly got Jan, then you killed."

Helen brushed a kiss over Steve's cheek as silent thanks for the shudder he gave, apparently at the thought of her being in peril. Their gazes locked, as they did so often these days. He was still so handsome, with the warm hazel eyes and the grey-black hair. It was one of those moments where she wished they weren't working together so they could actually _be_ together rather than affectionately dancing around each other all the time. "All's well. We're all still here."

Her cell buzzed and she saw a little envelope icon indicating another email from Jan. Steve was copied in on Jan's 'last word' of the polite arguments about mediation duties they'd been having all morning, so she passed him his Blackberry.

* * *

_Ma'am,_

_Yes, to confirm, I __am__ refusing to mediate between Detective Halston and Officer Andersen, and respectfully request that Captain Renard takes this particular grievance forward. I realise that my failure to make my own formal harassment case against Jack Halston __**officially**__ makes me an 'objective' mediator, but the principle isn't going to work in practice._

_Your comment that I can't 'have my cake and eat it' confuses me: I don't know what else you're supposed to do with it._

_Inedible cake notwithstanding, my enduring concern is that Halston's antagonism towards me will be unfairly deflected towards Andersen, making positive discussion impossible. So on this occasion, I must bow out._

_Firmly yours,_

_Jan_

* * *

Steve burst out laughing from his bed, spluttering a little as he did so. "Firmly yours? Do I have something to worry about?"

"Oh, don't _you _start, Steve." She felt her cheeks blaze as she replied quickly and in brief, copying Sean in: _'point taken, put your firmness away'_. "Jan's been giving Nick diplomacy lessons ― at Nick's own request, I hasten to add. Maybe we should get Nick to give him abruptness lessons."

"Hmmmm. Good luck with that. Jan's probably been talking like that since he was born."

"Perhaps not _that_ early. But then again…" Helen summoned Jan's archaic English and adopted his solemnly benevolent expression. "Alas, my nappy is loose!"

"And this tiny milk bottle is _far_ from sustaining," Steve added, dipping his voice about an octave, despite the strain on his vocals. They chuckled together for a few minutes. "Ok, we're being mean. How does he get on with Nick?"

"Good! Nick's good for him. He's given him a little of his levity back. Oh! a reply from Sean…"

* * *

_**Vergeer**__, respectful request accepted. Will pick up grievance files this morning. Would appreciate it if you could type up a two-paragraph summary of the issues. _

_Grudgingly yours, _

_Renard._

_**Helen**__ – look forward to seeing you at ten. _

_Your servant etc, _

_Sean._

* * *

Steve raised his brows. "I'm beginning to think that Sean _does _have a sense of humour, but only on email, where no one can see him smile. Oh – the time, Helen…"

She looked up at the clock and leapt off the bed. It was quarter before ten already. "So sorry, I'd better run."

"Yeah, go," he croaked. "I'll see you later."

She shoved her shoes back on, gave his hand a squeeze and rushed for the lift, waving as the doors closed behind her. Just before they shut, she saw him drop back into his pillows, absolutely shattered. She desperately hoped they could get on top of his infections so he could start getting better ― though with radiotherapy, he was likely to feel worse, first. He'd take it and brave it. He was tough like that. She hoped she'd be tough enough to help him get through it.

**X x X**

As sarcastic as they were, the Captains' responses to his evasion of the Halston mediation came as a monumental relief, and Jan hammered out a summary of both sides' complaints in a couple of minutes to give to Renard. It was pretty basic, and the initial grievance had been brought by Halston for damage to his hand.

Halston had been giving Officer Andersen friendly advice to comfort her after a bust went wild, and she'd taken it the wrong way, choosing to slam his hand in the photocopier rather than ask him to back up a little if he felt she was crowding his space. Andersen's rebutting statement explained that _any_ guy thinking that a hand on the waist/butt in an empty office would be 'comforting' was clearly too dumb to be a cop. She also insisted that she'd moved away twice to give him a clue about personal space before actually asking him to back off, then finally 'taking more drastic measures of discouragement'.

Jan printed the summary out, clipped it to the grievance files, and slotted it into his desk for security before dashing out for a snack before Renard arrived to get the paperwork.

His blood sugars had dropped a little rapidly lately because he'd taken up morning running in the vague hope that he could keep up with Nick, who not only ran fast, but ran fast for a very long time without pausing for breath. The energy expenditure was huge and he found himself needing to eat more often to stay on an even keel. The problem was keeping some of that eating secret. What he was putting away to maintain his weight was hardly normal human consumption. Of course he could eat crap until the cows came home, but that would make him feel even shittier than not eating enough. Nope, he needed a reasonably healthy protein fix. A large one.

He slinked into his favourite charcuterie on the corner of Nelson and Main, and the guy behind the counter greeted him without even looking up.

"Bonjour, Jan. Big sandwich for the car, or little sandwiches for the office?"

Jan grinned. "The discreet double please, Henri. I need to space them out a little."

The man behind the counter opened up a couple of pistolet baguettes, applied mustard, and laid down a pound-strip of steak in each before wrapping one for the office, and leaving the other open for Jan to demolish in the alley before he went back into work.

Jan paid, thanked him, and was about to go, when Henri took his wrist and growled confidentially.

"Next week, I am getting this extra cow that I have brought. I am getting some 32oz sections cut. One is for you."

Jan grinned. The Mauvais Dentes butcher always spoke of his own stock in trade as if he were pushing hard drugs. He dipped his own voice to a conspiratorial murmur, while trying not to get too close. Not that he was vaguely afraid of Henri's character, but his personal scent, like three-day-dead venison, could be a little overpowering. "That would be fantastic. How much do I owe you?"

"Riens, Jan. No, no… you pay _nothing_ for this momentous cow butt. You must call this my thanks for referring me to your dentist. He is a miracle man. Never again will I fear my molars."

"I'm glad you're feeling better. Thanks again, Henri."

Jan went to his shadowy corner round the back of the Hung Fa Lo restaurant where he'd first met Henri, doing pretty much exactly the same as he was ― secretly making his inner carnivore happy in a discreet corner. Only, Henri had barely been able to chew on one side of his mouth and almost fell over sideways when he got a bit of sinew stuck. Jan drove him to his specialist dentist and a friendship was born.

He unwrapped the tissue from the middle of the pistolet and did a partial woge, allowing his teeth to come through. The steak was rare, juicy and butter-soft, and he finished the sandwich in about five bites. He looked down to make sure he hadn't dribbled anything unseemly down his shirt then made his way back to the precinct car park. He strode through to the lift at the same time as Nick pulled in, all apologies for the delay, but with a strange sort of glow in his face as he explained in an excited babble the cause of his second hold-up and his race to rescue Abi Chester.

"...and this Dale guy was a _total_ asshole. Made Abi feel like dirt. God knows what Juliette's doing with him."

"I'm sure she'll be asking herself that, in time," Jan assured, pressing the second floor button on the lift panel. It was scandalously lazy, really, but he didn't care, for once. Nick's wide-eyed exuberance and tales of his chivalry made him grin: the guy reminded him of a small child talking about doing something brave for 'show and tell' at school.

The smile almost snapped off his face as Halston forced the lift doors back open a fraction before they shut and bounded in, slamming the third floor button. Jan kept it polite. "Morning."

"Hey Nick, how's it going?"

Nick looked uncomfortably between him and Halston and seemed to settle for polite conversation to fill the suddenly leaden silence. "I'm good. What happened to your hand?"

Halston waved his plaster-cast vaguely. "Ah... bust-related injuries. No biggie."

Jan talked his eyebrows into remaining where they were rather than fly up into his hairline in disbelief, like they wanted to.

"It's hard keeping on top of the team's work these days," Halston went on. "Hank moved over to Homicide, did you hear?"

Nick nodded. "He sent me an email."

"He's a traitor," Halston chuckled. "Just kidding. A guy's got to move on sometime, I guess, and Homicide's almost like a promotion. Some ways of leaving the squad are better than others, I guess. Aren't they, Jan?"

"Absolutely," Jan said serenely, meeting Halston's piercing stare with a flat gaze of his own. There was no reason to get Nick caught up in their vibes. They reached SVU's floor and walked out, Halston's voice following them into the corridor with an exclusive beer night offer for Nick before the sliding lift doors cut him off.

Nick stopped in the corridor and stuck his hands in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, Jan, that was... awkward."

He had to address this. "Don't worry about being cordial with him in my presence, if that's what's bothering you."

"It _is_ bothering me. You're my partner, and he's a shit to you. I feel like I should be reacting to that, somehow."

"Don't. Really." He was touched, but he had no intention of seeing history repeat itself. Simon nearly got blown away entirely by storming a room full of armed guys in the belief that he was 'sticking them one for his partner'. "Look, Nick…from experience, I can tell you that it's better to have Halston be friendly with you than unfriendly with you. It'll make your life a whole lot easier. It's not your responsibility to take my difficulties with him into consideration."

"Well… alright. I'll be civil, but if he slates you to me, I'm not taking it quietly," Nick said stubbornly. "We still haven't had that explanatory beer, by the way. You were going to tell me what this whole cold war's about."

"I will." Though it'd been a couple of weeks since he'd said that.

"Hmmm."

Jan chuckled at Nick's comically raised brows. "Really!"

"Hmmmm!" Nick grinned though as they headed back to their desks and a moment later, Renard arrived with Wu, shortly followed by Wilson, who Jan noted looked brighter than she had done for days. Hopefully that meant that Wilkes was a little better. He'd looked like hell last night.

Jan wordlessly passed Renard the grievance files, which he accepted with a nod and followed Wilson into her office.

Left outside, Wu meandered up to their desk and flicked his hand up in his standard salute-wave. "So. How's the world of sleazy scumbags?"

"Thankfully quiet," Jan admitted. "Though I gather you have something for us?"

"Possibly." Wu wiggled his head uncertainly, resting a hand on Nick's desk. "Though I'm still not sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me. I could do with your input, if only to put my mind at rest. I think we _might _have an undisclosed runaway."

Jan groaned inwardly. They were absolutely the worst to track, and usually these cases ended badly, finding the body of a child or teenager who'd run from something awful to something worse. He noted Nick's confused expression and explained. "It's where people have had a child living with them in secret, who's made a run for it. They're hard to find because they're usually not registered with schools or on foster records, or introduced to neighbours ― all that kind of thing."

"Shit," Nick said simply, which pretty much summarised all the abuse scenarios that this kind of domestic set-up enabled.

"Indeed," he agreed. "What made you think that, John?"

"It's pathetic evidence. Actually, it's not even evidence. The husband was at the home when I arrived on scene yesterday and we were talking in the lounge. He seemed genuinely distraught and all that, but he was mumbling so much that my attention wandered. There was a picture behind him, _I'm sure_, of him, his wife and a teenaged boy. I asked him if needed an officer around to break the news to his son, and he looked a little startled. I was about to explain that it was just an offer to support him if he needed help, but got distracted when Harper turned up for the wife's body. Anyway, I only had few more questions, and we left. But the photo was gone. And… that's all I've got."

Jan sighed. Wu had close attention to detail: there was no reason to disbelieve what he thought he'd seen.

Nick sat forward in his seat. "Is the husband under suspicion, right now?"

"We're checking out his alibi, but it's likely to be solid. He mentioned about four people who saw him the night before last."

"Have forensics been round?" Nick asked.

"Come and gone. They're processing the scene already."

Jan unwrapped his second steak sandwich, but didn't really feel like eating it now, calorie-requirement or not. Disappearances of Wesen children weren't uncommon. Either they went through a hideous woge puberty where they couldn't be let out in public for a while, or they'd died of something pretty standard that couldn't be treated in an emergency room because their condition pushed them into full woge. Sadly, it resulted in all manners of suspicious body disposals that led to murder charges being laid when the corpses were uncovered. He sighed and dumped his sandwich down.

"Have you told Captain Renard your concerns?"

"He believes me," Wu glowed, "But rightfully pointed out that we need a relevant line of enquiry to justify questions about some boy in a photo I may or may not have seen when he's just lost his wife."

"Alright," Jan said, "We'll start with the basics. It could be something as simple as the boy having died not so long ago, and the husband not being able to handle the double-grief."

Wu pulled a face. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Keep giving people the benefit of the doubt? Even when you're proved wrong nearly every other time?"

"Not that often," Jan amended mildly. "Besides, it's easier to do the job if you don't start out from an apocalyptic starting point."

And it worked better too. He remained more objective that way: more inclined to follow the evidence than the sterotypes. Wu had a point, though. On the very few occasions when either a completely deluded or psychopathically calm person had turned out to have killed their own children, it felt like a kick in the face, because he could usually sift the liars from the merely nervous by their physical responses to questioning long before the evidence pointed at them. Nick was an incredible bullshit detector, for a human. He seemed to have an exceptional talent for beguiling suspects and leading them into contradictions of their own stories while remaining wide-eyed, believing and friendly.

"Where do we start?" Nick asked.

"Wu, could you email us the details of the husband? The first step is just to check whether this child exists on paper anywhere. Like, on a private fostering register, or at a school, or on a birth or death certificate. Then we talk to neighbours, discreetly. Depending on the picture we build up, we can then talk to Mr...?"

"Lloyd. Charles Lloyd." Wu straightened up. "Thanks. I appreciate it. Couldn't shrug off that creepy feeling, somehow. Oh - the Captain cometh..."

Renard sped up a little, rustling the mediation file purposefully as he stalked past, his spare hand in his pocket. "I'll walk. I've got to go to the civic building for this anyway. See you back at the office, Wu."

"Aaaand the Captain go-eth." Wu pulled an indignant face. "He hates my car. He thinks it's a lurid nightmare."

Nick dipped down behind his desk to do up laces which Jan knew did not exist. The kid tucked away smirk while he was down there and popped up looking solemn.

Wu stared around at their lack of response and folded his arms. "This is where you all vehemently disagree, by the way."

Jan changed his mind about leaving his steak sandwich and bit into it urgently to hide his own rising grin. Wu's car was a hideous lime green horror of a boxy Honda and a genuine test of Nick's evolving skills in evasive tact. Nick had asked for lessons in diplomacy after Wu had told him that Jan had managed to talk his way out of being murdered a couple of times. Nick apparently felt that this was a skill worth learning.

Nick met Jan's eyes desperately, seeking help, but he indicated his full mouth apologetically. Every fledgling had to fly solo sometime. Nick started out with with stalling tactics.

"Uh...which car? You mean... your Honda?"

"Yeah, the Honda!" Wu flipped an exasperated hand. "How many cars do you think I have?"

"Could've been talking about your squad car."

"Nick! The squad car's _monochrome_, not even possibly lurid by anyone's standards!"

"Well...the Honda's... a very exciting colour."

Jan swallowed his mouthful before he choked at Nick's attempt at the 'accentuate the positive' principle.

"You don't like it, do you? Be honest."

Nick cleared his throat and went for a kind, grave sort of expression that Jan thoroughly approved of.

"Ah, Wu, we're good friends and your feelings are important to me, so...um... I'd rather not be honest about your car."

Jan dropped his face down into his hand. So near... yet so far.

Wu smiled tightly. "Jan, are you still giving tact lessons?"

"Yes."

"Your work here is not yet done."

"Understood."

"Right, well, there's no need for me to email you the Lloyd details," Wu got a photocopied sheet out of his back pocket. "Address details, full names, DOB all that stuff – right on here. Thanks for helping, guys. I'm gonna go bandage my hurt feelings, now. Later!"

Jan waved him off chuckling, and at Nick's confused look, gave a mild sigh. "You get ten out of ten for being openly unwilling to wound."

"I completely tanked that live assignment, didn't I? Think I'll ever get the hang of diplomacy?"

Jan felt that the schooling had come to a natural end. "I'm not sure what you'd get out of it, Nick. You have your own way of charming people, which is entirely effective. I recommend a horses-for-courses approach, here. I'll stick to my style of communication, and you just keep being 'Nick'. Far more relaxing all round."

Nick grinned, seemingly unaware of being dismissed from school, sans laude. "Thanks Jan."

Jan breathed a sigh of relief at how easily Nick took the news. If he couldn't kick Nick out of tact classes tactfully, then he wasn't worth a damn as a teacher. At least he still had some mentor's dignity left.

**X x X**

Nick opened the word document listing all the middle and high schools in Portland, with their contact details. It was something he'd compiled in ten minutes here and there over lunches and after work so they'd have a complete directory when they needed it rather than have to waste time on internet searching and making dozens of administrative phone calls when they were up against the clock. It was time worth spending in more ways than one: Jan was an appreciative partner. He was so pleased to see it when he'd first picked it up off the printer, that Nick found himself the owner of a 12-pack of Peroni left in his locker. They kept spare keys for each other, these days.

He spent half an hour with a highlighter pen and a map, filtering the Portland list of schools down to those which had Lloyd's address within their geographic catchment area. Twelve of them. Dammit. Even if he were brisk and the receptionists were helpful, that was still hours on the phone at his desk when a kid could be in serious danger. And they had no idea what range of 'teenager' they were looking for. A thirteen year old? Or a young man at the other end of the scale? Nick reckoned somewhere around 15-17. He knew Wu's terms. A teenager 18 or over would've been 'young guy' and 14 or below would've been 'kid'.

He prioritised the schools by driving order and stared off into the distance. Some of the calls he wanted to make in person.

He still couldn't believe he got to see Juliette earlier, even if she was with some kind of pet asshole. She seemed really pleased for his move out of uniform, but he doubted she'd be anywhere near so impressed if she knew how much of his job was spent sitting, crossing things off a list, and annoying people over the phone. Mentally, he recreated a scene where Juliette came to pick up Abi without Dale around, and their lips locked accidentally over the car door… no. No – he had to mentally dispense with Dale somehow.

"Nick?"

He was a strict non-fiction fantasist: there had to be a good reason for undesirable characters to be off the scene for him to enjoy the fantasy fully. Maybe Dale had had an affair, and he got to smack the guy round the face? Possibly. In Juliette's full view. But maybe she was non-violent. Ok, maybe the scene at Ellis avenue was as it was, except that Dale got really nasty with Abi, and he leapt to her aid. Then they got into brawl where Dale showed his true colours, but he won the vicious fight, getting to his feet all wobbly and victorious, and… actually _no_, not wobbly. Just victorious. Then he drove them away, and...

"NICK!"

He jumped in his seat as Jan ducked down into his line of sight, looking completely bemused.

"You daydream with a vengeance! What were you doing? Leading Juliette away from Dale on horseback?"

"No!" Nick's cheeks superheated. How the hell could he come that close to the truth? "What makes you say that?"

"Your increasingly absent, silly beam gave it away. Here. Caffeine." Jan put a coffee by his elbow.

"You don't have to declare it across the office."

"You were doing that yourself, I'm afraid." Jan propped himself on the side of the desk.

"Was not." At least today's fantasy had been mild. He'd had others which he hoped would remain buried even if he were abducted, filled with sodium pentothal, and asked a series of really personal questions under intense lamplight.

"You're not the first or the last guy to get trapped into a sequence of heroic fantasies after meeting someone attractive. They're all-consuming, especially when you're doing something very boring. Can I help? With the boring stuff, that is, not the fantasies."

Nick cleared his throat. "I'll take the high schools. There are fifteen of those, including the private ones. Could you take the four colleges, and check the foster register with Child Services?"

Jan laughed softly. "Very smooth, Nick, but it's YOUR turn to call Cleo."

"I can't." Nick had a headache just thinking about it, and he noted Wilson nodding sympathetically as she joined them at the desk, her coat over her arm. "This is going to sound nuts, but when I speak to Cleo, it feels like she's massaging some kind of smelly numbing agent into my brain and I end up agreeing to do... everything."

"That's not nuts, it's revolting," Wilson remarked. "True, though."

Jan's eyes lit up suddenly. "I don't know why I didn't think of that before. I think she's probably a Konin―" he broke off, startled at himself, then cleared his throat and went on. "A con-artist rehabilitated into public service."

Nick snickered. "I would _love_ to know what you nearly said."

"Not telling you," Jan said primly. "But it's definitely your turn with Cleo. We agreed last time I lost the coin toss."

Nick was about to retort when the team phone went off. Jan reached for it automatically and his expression of total chagrin as Cleo's Caramel Bunny voice floated down the line nearly had Nick chewing his sleeve with laughter. Wilson strode out of the building, smirking.

"...right... No, no that's very relevant and useful to know..." Jan gestured urgently for pad and pen. "Ok, I'm equipped. Their address is? Alright..."

Jan seemed to be withstanding her really well until his eyes glazed slightly and he started 'hmmm-ing' to whatever she was suggesting down the line to him. Then he shook his head violently. "Cleo, could you excuse me one moment? Thank you kindly." Jan put her on 'silence'. "Nick, a quick slap round the face, please. Urgently."

Nick pulled a face. "Uh... slap you?"

"Not a knock-out blow, just a short, sharp shock to get the blood going again. She's sucking me in. I nearly agreed to a kindergarten guided tour of PPD."

"Ah... ok." Nick obliged with a measured swipe but felt his hand gain weight and momentum as it approached Jan. He had no control over it, it seemed. On contact, Jan crashed sideways off the edge of the desk, taking the phone with him and half of Nick's papers. The phone came off silent mode by itself, and suddenly Jan was talking to her again, sounding much smoother and more in control, even while eating carpet. Nick leapt guiltily from his seat and offered Jan a hand up, gathering his papers as his partner staggered to his feet.

"... that's a 'no' on the tour though, Cleo. Even though it would be very instructive for them. No... no... I'm very sorry, but I like my legs where they are and Portland's Captain would probably cut them off if I agreed to twenty infants in his squadroom. He struggled with Angie, to be honest. Thanks for the tip-off, though. Ok... bye.. BYE."

"I'm REALLY sorry, Jan."

"It's alright, Nick. I did ask for it. Literally." Jan rubbed his cheek in slight disbelief. "It was just unexpectedly… vigorous. Anyway, we have something of a lead and need to call Wu back. A neighbour of Mr Lloyd's noticed a young man staggering out through the storm hatch of their home earlier in the week, looking frightened and clutching his head. She said he ran out, but couldn't keep a straight line. So there's someone there. Or was."

"Why didn't they report it earlier?"

"Because a lot of teenagers around that area have problems with Crystal Meth. Sadly, the sight of young boys breaking curfew to get out for their fix isn't uncommon, and she had no reason to believe anything else was amiss until the Police turned up at his home after Mrs Lloyd's murder. She mentioned that she hadn't recalled ever seeing this boy except at night time."

Nick huffed a sigh. "Ok, creepy case. Enough to go and talk to the neighbour?"

"Absolutely. Child protection - our territory, whatever's going on with the homicide. Do me a favour though and call Renard and Wu and let them know we have parallel enquiries to make."

Nick stood. "Sure. Shall we go now?"

"Mrs Ventriss works afternoons at the laundromat. She won't be home until six. Until then... pass me half that school list."

**X x X**

They drove to Southlands Fields with a half-hour to spare, having spent a completely unrewarding afternoon trying to track down Jason Lloyd at various schools across Portland and not finding any trace of him after the age of 15. Cleo texted them later in the afternoon to confirm that he wasn't on the private foster list, or the foster list ― which could simply mean that Jason was Charles' son ― but neither of them liked the fact that hardly anyone seemed aware of the fact that the Lloyds even had a child, or the fact that Wu couldn't remember seeing any evidence of a teenager in the home except that one photo.

Nick recognised the area as approached from a different direction from usual, and pointed to a block of apartments on Southlands Drive. "That's where Abi lives!"

"And ergo Juliette," Jan mumbled, making Nick realise that he might have wittered a little more than necessary on the subject of her hair on the way over.

They were still way too early to show up at the neighbour's house, so Nick didn't really protest as Jan pulled the Spyder into the forecourt of a drive-through burger joint.

"Want anything, Nick?"

"Uh... quarter pounder with the works. And a pepsi." He dug in his pocket and pulled out a ten-spot.

Jan took it, instantly gave him a five back, then leant out to the counter. "Good evening, could we have a pepsi, the 16 oz orange juice, a quarter pounder with 'the works', the double-roast-chicken sandwich, and a corn cob, please."

Nick stared as Jan paid up. "Hungry?"

"Starving."

As it happened, it didn't take Jan much longer to finish his meal than it took Nick to eat his burger, and of course, Nick had to eat up while covered in protective tarpaulin while Jan seemed to trust himself to eat tidily. Just as they were cleaning up, Wu called and Jan clicked the radio on.

"Just an FYI guys, Lloyd's four alibis are dropping like flies. He's increasingly considered dangerous and we're scrambling a warrant for his arrest right now. If you're still going to talk to neighbours for imprisonment evidence, watch your backs, ok? We're incoming. ETA fifteen minutes."

Nick cleared his throat. "If we have reason to approach the property, do you want us to wait?"

"If you're armed, you have clearance to act on your own remit," Wu said. "No waiting, in English."

"Copy that," Nick muttered, and Jan put the car into drive. They got to Southlands Crescent in a couple of minutes, and Jan parked up. All the lights were off at Mrs Ventriss' house except a small lamp in the kitchen. "She doesn't look like she's back yet, but maybe she's just an energy-saver."

It wasn't the most salubrious of neighbourhoods, after all. They trotted up her steps and knocked, but almost as soon as Nick's knuckles made contact with the wood, he felt something cold pressing at his spine and whipped round. Similarly, Jan had his head cocked like he was trying to hear something muted, far away.

"Pick up on something, Nick?"

"Just a feeling." Then Nick saw Lloyd at the window of his front room, glaring furiously through a gap in the curtain. The curtain was released way too quickly and Lloyd disappeared. They both bolted towards the house, and as they approached, Nick heard hammering. Jan accelerated and stopped by the storm hatch next to the front steps. The handles had been padlocked from the outside, keeping the insider firmly in ― perhaps following the witnessed break-out earlier in the week.

Jan bent, braced a foot alongside the concrete hatch housing, grabbed the handles, clenched his teeth and pulled. Nick stared as both doors came off the hinges with a snap. A young guy leapt out immediately, looking relieved for a second, then seeming to notice their guns, then noticing Jan… and sprinted away towards the woodlands in a panic.

Lloyd Senior then came flying out the front door, nearly sending Nick sprawling, and bolted off towards town.

"I'll get the boy!" Jan yelled, and Nick pelted off after Lloyd.

The guy was a fast runner: no two ways about it. Nick kept pursuit, weaving between pedestrians without knocking anyone over, unlike Lloyd, who left a trail of furious people behind him. A squad car shot past Nick and beeped. Good - hopefully he could run the guy into a trap. He breathed as slowly as he could while accelerating - an old trick to stop the lactic acid building too high.

In the early-year darkness, Lloyd's suit was difficult to pick out, so Nick focussed on his fast shadow dipping in and out of pools of streetlight on the sidewalk as he picked up more speed. A black CMG screamed past him, siren on roof. It looked like Renard's car. Well, Lloyd was their suspect too.

Something warm and solid hit Nick beneath the knees and he pitched forward fast, putting his hands down to brace himself in the split second before hitting pavement, but not fast enough. He felt a snag across the top of his brow and a brief white hot pain that took his breath away.

The sidewalk felt unusually hard. They weren't typically springy, but this one pressed into his ribs, his cheekbone and his knees in an uncompromising way. He heard furious barking behind him and a furious voice demanding to know what the fuck he'd done to his dog. Nick pressed up from his hands ― ow ― and got to his knees, looking back over his shoulder. A black Labrador in a two-bar holster with a handle (oh crap, guide dog) snarled at him. Did Labradors snarl? Did guide dogs snarl? Nick was sure there were rules against it.

"Hey, pal, why the fuck'd you kick my dog?"

"Sorry, I fell. I dint kickyer d-dog," Nick managed, getting to his feet. He used the bollard in front of him for balance. There was a little sign on the side indicating that bikes should not be chained to it, with blood on the corner. Damn, there'd been a crime here. But he couldn't investigate. No time. He tried breaking back into a run but his legs rebelled after two paces and he had to fling an arm out to cling to the wall to keep himself from dropping. Female voices approached from behind.

"...Oh my God... Nick? Nick, come here…"

He pressed his back against the wall for balance and looked down at the girl gently taking his arm. "Oh... hey, Abi!" A little focus also showed the gorgeous red-head bending over the dog, checking it over and giving it a firm tap on the nose to silence its barking. "An' Juliette! An' here's me… all fuckin' wobbly and not victorious…"

Abi's murmurs of concern and Juliette's conversation with the dog owner overlapped. Juliette won.

"Yeah, I'm a vet. I know what I'm talking about. Your dog's just fine. Just a little cross and shocked."

"Can you blame the poor mutt? Some stupid fucker slamming into him, and―"

"Oh…piss off!" Juliette said languidly, and the guy did, muttering darkly about ginger bitches.

Nick wanted to lunge after him and throttle, but struggled to lift his chin off his chest.

"Nick? Focus on me."

Nick looked down and saw Abi's hand approach his head, something folded in the palm. "Whassat?"

"A sports bra," she admitted, and applied gentle pressure that made him feel instantly woozy, while slipping an arm between his waist and the wall. "You need to come and sit down. You hit your head really, _really_ hard."

Nick felt his legs turn into soggy lead and sort of piled against her, painfully aware that this would do nothing for her back.

"Whoa, get him!"

Slightly steadied, he made his way to the ground slowly in a white-and-red fog. Crap, Abi's bad back! And he hadn't picked her up from hospital after all.

"'M Sorry," he said, as she tucked his head and shoulders into a gap between her knees and her front. "I'd drive you home but... my legs don't... really work..."

Nor his eyelids, for that matter. He felt incredibly heavy but his pillow was nice and soft, even if the gentle pressure Abi kept against his head made it sting and throb like crazy. He felt fingers or a light thumb brushing against his jaw in a soothing rhythm, and into the hair behind his ears. He could doze off like that. Nice.

"Jules, could you check him over?"

"Sure, but I'm calling 911 first," Juliette muttered. "Let's get them on the way."

He heard her give the address of Southlands drive and explain what had happened to him, then she conferred quietly with Abi about him being confused and not letting him drift off. Ah... that would explain his hearing. He chuckled against Abi's front. "I.. AM a bit c'nfused. I thot you were puttin' a sports bra 'n my head."

"I am, Nick," Abi said with a sigh. "I had my sports rehab bag with me. Nothing else. Keep talking. Where's your partner? The big guy?"

"Chasing..." and that's all Nick could really remember. "Will you tell Jan my head hurts an' I'll... be late for work?"

He thought Abi said something about Jan not minding at all, but the heaviness in the rest of him reached his head and he struggled to hear what she was saying...

: : : : :

Wu's voice crackled over the radio line to let him know they'd picked up Charles Lloyd, so Sean did a U-turn on Southlands Drive, grateful for the light traffic, and kept his car at 40 getting back to where Burkhardt had fallen. He parked up and leapt out, relieved to see that he was already being attended to.

Nick was lying in the lap of a blonde girl who was sitting with her back against the wall and wincing substantially while holding that position. The red-head had managed to get a first-aid box from a late-night shop a few doors down and was trying to clean grit off his palms and forearms, his shirt sleeves bunched up over his elbows.

Sean looked at the blonde girl more closely. "You look... very familiar."

"Nick helped me with an attack a while ago," she explained. "I gave evidence by videolink, so maybe you saw me 'in court'?"

That was it. Sean nodded. Abi Chester in the Berlingo case. Clearly Nick had made a good impression because she was being extremely careful about holding on to him while he mumbled. Sean frowned. Nick was suffering one of the strangest concussions Sean had seen: 95% of him looked completely unconscious, except for his mouth and left hand, which remained energetic, gesturing firmly in time with whatever he was mumbling.

Sean hunkered down and put a hand on Nick's shoulder. "Burkhardt, can you hear me?"

"They c'n do it with my clothes ON," Nick proclaimed, prodding the sidewalk with his forefinger. "N't like Jan. Jan gets his clothes stooo-len."

He frowned. "Nick, who steals Jan's clothes?"

"The nurses. He goes to hospital dressed, then boof! No cloze. N't happening to me. I want teeshirts." Another firm pavement prod, then suddenly Nick opened his eyes. "Renard! Is you!"

"It's me, yes," Sean agreed.

Nick clutched urgently at his wrist. "Will ya tell 'em I want teeshirts?"

"I'll ensure they add teeshirts to your care plan," Sean muttered, and Nick's eyes slid shut again. Sean saw the red-head press her fingers against her lips. As he looked over, she straightened her expression.

"Sorry, I'm _really_ not laughing at him. He's a good guy. He's just so... chatty."

Sean heard approaching sirens and gave Nick's shoulder another little shake. The pliant proto-Grimm rolled a lot with the motion, but didn't say anything. "Thanks, both of you, for being so helpful."

"Oh it's fine. He's been good to us, so..." Miss Chester's voice trailed off as paramedics leapt from the bus and started work on Nick, fairly pleased to find that he'd already been cleaned, gauzed and bandaged as much as they would've done anyway. Sean had to help getting the floppy detective onto the gurney, and then the ambulance left.

He called Wu, first. "Burkhardt's on his way to Portland General. Have you heard from Vergeer?"

"He was chasing the boy," Wu said. "Don't know how successful he was, though."

"Alright. Let him know where Nick's gone, could you? I'll walk down to Lloyd's place and guide the forensics team back in. It looks like we have false imprisonment of a minor, as well as a murder."

"Will do."

It occurred to Sean that Wilson would tell him to say 'thanks'. "Oh ― Wu?"

"Sir?"

"Good spot with the photo. You may have saved the kid's life."

There was a long quiet at the other end of the line, an emotional sniff, then: "Thank you, Sir."

Sean chuckled as he hung up, and decided to walk down to Lloyd's place for privacy before making his next call. It had been a weird kind of day. The mediation didn't go well: he couldn't blame Vergeer for wanting out. He'd tried his usual tactic of staring expectantly at both parties, which usually had the effect of creating an awkward vacuum into which people babbled so fast that the meeting was over quickly. Not this time. Andersen had plenty to say, and had her arguments for whatever Halston came out with impeccably ready. She even finished half his sentences for him. Sure, Halston was predictable, but it was hard work balancing the discussion and he had the distinct impression that neither was likely to be bullied effectively by the other in future. He told them both that he was not going to accept either of their grievances and that they needed to come to terms with each other's behaviour in some alternate, non-violent way.

The afternoon was better: at about two, Nick faxed through a suggested 'aged-to-15' drawing based on a blurry photo of Jason Lloyd when he was 11. The photo matched nothing: the picture was so good that it hit a match on the missing person's database at Jason's own address. His parents, or 'foster' parents, had declared him missing about a year ago. He was just 17. Sean hoped that they managed to track the kid down before he got himself into trouble. He reached the Lloyd property and walked down into the storm cellar, wondering how Burkhardt and Vergeer managed to get the hatch doors off. Must have taken both of them to free the kid, only for him to run. How frustrating. Two steps inside, and he smelt the half-raw mince smell of the Mauvais Dentes. He backed out immediately, wondering what to do. He'd already been into the front room. He knew the Lloyds were Schakal. What the hell was going on? He decided to run interrogations on Mr Lloyd himself. Oh, and on the thought of Wesen nightmares… he dialled Kessler's number.

She coughed into the phone. "What do you want?"

"To let you know that your nephew took a crack round the head and is in Portland General."

Kessler grunted down the line at him. "Is he acting strange and talking nonsense?"

Sean considered this. On one hand, Nick was slurring, muttering, appeared to possess an independent left hand, and had spent some time denouncing the nursing staff at Portland General. On the other hand, Sean had once experienced the same sleep-stripped phenomenon as Vergeer, so Nick clearly wasn't talking complete nonsense.

"Mostly. But there's logic in the loopiness."

"Good. It's when he's still that I worry. He'll be fine. I'll send him a card. I'm going back to bed, now."

"Injured, or sick?"

"Sick," she muttered. "Been off my game lately. Was there anything else?"

Yes, because courtesy updates on Nick's progress were not his only reason for calling. "I've been keeping an eye out for him, Kessler. He's very, very smart and intuitive. He's athletic. He has the family's talent for disturbingly good art."

"Well... he's a Grimm."

Sean raised his brows, thinking of the first time he'd seen Nick in the office as a detective, measuring his partner. Considering his bounce and kind streak. Considering his talent in soothing very tiny, dribbly Lowen. Considering his deep concern for his partner. Like Reed Burkhardt, who died so unnecessarily, Nick was about as naturally violent as a butternut squash. Sean suspected him of being not so much a proto-Grimm, but a dormant one.

"Maybe," he mused. "We'll see."

"What do you mean, maybe? He's the son of two Grimms - of course he's going to be a Grimm!"

Sean smiled down the phone. "I'm just saying that I think Nick is his father's son, not his mother's―"

"Oh _don't_ say that!"

"So if you're looking to him to continue your single-minded ancestry and guard that key with his life when you finally hand it over… you're going to be in for a bit of a shock. You'd better form some contingency plans, like giving the key to me."

"He'll know his responsibilities when the time comes and he _will _pick up where I left off."

"To an extent, perhaps," Sean thought, though couldn't imagine Nick hunting the members of the Verrat as Marie did. "But he's very much his own man, and unlike you, he follows the evidence, not the stereotype. This kid was born to be a cop."

**X x X**

_**TBC!**_


	8. Each to their own (part 2)

**Hi folks… thanks all **_**so**_** much for the wonderful reviews on the first part of this… I really appreciate it, and have gone a bit further into Nick's past with this one. So now this is a 3-parter. Lol. So much for a series of 'shorts'. But I just didn't want to sprint over fun parts for the sake of keeping to a two-part format.**

**Anyway… I hope you continue to enjoy!**

**X x X**

Steve was dozing fitfully when she'd got off shift and arrived at the General at around seven, and as she took her usual seat by his bed, Helen felt her eyes closing without her permission. She felt daydreams give way to something a little deeper when her cell went off, making her jump.

"Wilson?" she mumbled.

"Hey, this is Sergeant Wu ― just to let you know, Nick had an accident. We've tried calling Jan, but he must have his hands full or he'd have called back by now."

"What? Is Nick ok?"

"Uh no, he's not. He slammed his head pretty good. He's at Portland General in the neurological admissions ward."

Helen saw Tony DeMarcos stride out of the lift towards Steve's room and nodded at him as he approached. At least neurology was literally just round the corner. She didn't have far to go. "I'll be right there. Make sure he's not alone."

"Thanks Ma'am."

Helen hung up and grabbed her bag and shoes, running her hand through her hair. "Hey, Tony."

"Who's not alone?" Tony asked, striding up to the bed, then looked down at Steve and whistled lowly. "Whoa, he's in a bad spot. Has he woken up at all, yet?"

She managed a small smile. "This morning. He was in better shape. We talked a little."

"Thank fuck for that." Tony gazed at her. "You gotta be somewhere? I can hang out here for a while."

"Burkhardt smacked his head," she explained. "I'm gonna go sit with him for a bit. I don't think he has much in the way of visiting family and it sounds like Jan's pretty busy. You guys going to be ok?"

"I think we can last a little while without taking chunks out of each other." Tony indicated the door with a nod and a quarter smile. "You go. We'll be fine. He was my partner once, too, you know. You get priority with him, but not monopoly."

"Thank you." She risked a peck on the cheek while all was still peaceful between them and he patted her arm awkwardly just before dropping into the seat she'd just vacated and linking thumbs with Steve, who tugged his eyes open groggily.

"Hey pal, I always said it would take something serious like cancer to shut you up for five minutes and... here we are! One sick, silent Steve!"

She looked back at the doorway to see Steve sigh heavily into his oxygen supply and flip Tony the bird in slow motion.

"That's more like it, buddy."

Helen rolled her eyes, but was relieved to see the one-time brotherhood between the guys come back to life again ― just as it was important. She strode off down to neurology and came across Nick's room quick enough. She needn't have worried about him being alone. There were two girls in his room; a red-head was behind the bed, trying to hold a cool compress on Nick's head (he wasn't making it easy), a blonde girl sat on the edge and held his right hand. They were arguing...

...no, not arguing, Helen realised as she drew closer. Debating something warmly, but each trying very hard to hold their ground on something without it turning into an argument. She hung back in the corridor, trying to let them reach a hiatus point before walking in on them and creating extra, unnecessary layers of awkward.

"... he's not always like that. This morning was important to him. Getting his Forensic Auditor's certificate... it's kind of like a mini graduation."

"I know! He made sure I was aware of the time pressures all the way to the hospital. At every traffic light, a gale force sigh and a tongue-click. I never said Dale was a jerk, by the way. You asked me why I was so uncomfortable around him and I did my best to be straight, nicely." The blonde girl sighed. "I owe you guys a lot. I really don't want to sound like a bitch about anything."

The red-head gave the blonde girl a resigned smile as she tried chasing Nick's tossing head with the cold-pack and resorted to putting a light hand to the side of his face to keep him vaguely still. "You don't sound anything like a bitch. Don't worry. Hell... does this guy ever stay put?"

"I doubt it," the blonde chuckled. "So... are we ok?"

"We're fine... I think I'm on edge because I know things are at the end of the road with Dale anyhow."

"Wahay!" Nick contributed drowsily, eyes still shut, but bopping the air in a slightly uncoordinated way with his left hand.

Helen chose to make her entry at that point, while the girls were giggling uncertainly amongst themselves. Wilson approached his bed on the left side, dumped her bag and gave them a smile. "Friends of Nick's?"

"Easier 'n horseback!" Nick added randomly, and flopped out again, apparently exhausted by this conversational exchange.

"I guess we're getting that way," the blonde girl conceded. "We saw him have his accident so followed him to hospital, but now we're mostly we're just standing guard. To make sure he keeps his clothes on."

Helen offered a wry smile. Nick still wore a red teeshirt and dark blue jeans. Only his shoes had been removed, and they were clearly in evidence at the bottom of his bed. "Job well done. Thanks for sticking around for him."

The girls filed out, and as they left, Helen caught the beginnings of a discussion about how much people could actually hear when they were 'out cold', not that this description readily described Nick's lively level of unconsciousness. He rolled onto his sore side, muttering and shivering slightly, folding his arms across his front. She pulled a blanket over him, got as comfortable as possible in the godawful chair, and waited for Jan.

**X x X**

Jan crashed through the bush for what felt like two or three miles, managing to keep Jason in sight until he ducked behind an oak and didn't seem to re-emerge. Jan sprinted to the spot where he'd vanished, but there was nothing. No sound, no movement, and the constant drizzle sabotaged any smell trace left.

"Godverdomme!" he barked, kicked a tree and stepped off, hands on knees, trying to get his breath back.

"Kids these days… all energy and no mission. Or… all trail and no mix, as my Pa used to say."

Jan straightened, recognising the Wildermann's unimpressed mid-west twang without even turning around. He got his breath back. "Evening, Mr Hendricks."

Larry Hendricks sat on a log, drenched, his rucksack between his feet and his hair hanging off him in fronds of dripping, matted string. He flipped a hand up in nonchalant welcome, his voice guttural in woge form. "Hey."

"What are you doing out here tonight?"

"Questionin' the value of being Wieder, to tell you the truth."

"Right." Jan raked his sodden hair out of his face. "Isn't there somewhere drier you could be doing this?"

Larry suddenly became very animated. "I wish! 'Cause there's communin' with nature, and then there's getting hypothermia and ― believe me, I DID NOT sign up for that. I actually came out tonight with a tent. Hell, until forty minutes ago, I even came out here with car keys but those little shits cornered me in the larches, knocked me around and stole pretty much _most_ of my gear. It makes me want to slam their heads till they crack, dangle by their parts from the trees, make teenager soup with their blood and tie their entrails into a pretty bow!"

Larry's little diatribe climaxed with a little wrath dance, but when he seemed to realise that he was the only one dancing (and that he was advertising his murderous feelings to a cop), he slumped back down on the log. "So... that's me. What are _you_ doing out here?"

"Apart from questioning your grasp of the 'wieder' concept?"

"Ah... tell me you're off duty! You know it's all just temper."

"I've been trying to track a Mauvais teenager. He burst out of a house on Southlands fields and disappeared in this copse. I'm not going to find him tonight, though. I'll try when it's drier. I might be able to track by sight and smell." Jan sighed and got to his feet, preparing for the wet, muddy trek back to his car. "Can I give you a lift somewhere?"

Larry gestured an answered prayer up to the skies. "Dude! Total lifesaver. I promise, never again will I be rude about cops."

"Or the parks service?"

"Can't promise that."

Jan chuckled and they made their way back through the moonlit blackness, both focussing on the boggy path through the hemlocks for a while so they didn't lose their footing.

"Y'know... by way of thanks for your unusual gallantry, I'm inclined to be a little helpful."

Jan faked a heart attack that earned him a light slap on the arm.

"Get out of it! No, really. It's all part of the wieder way. The mauvais kid - I know where you can find him."

Jan stopped suddenly and Larry barrelled into his back with a grunt of protest. He turned to see the Wildermann holding his nose. "Sorry ― that's big news. Forgive my scepticism, but how do you know, and why are you telling me?"

"How do I know? Well… let's see. The whole reason I need to be sleeping out in a tent _at all_ is because he annexed my secret pet cave. Asshole. Why am I telling you? Because the asshole annexed my secret pet cave and I want him out!"

"The old bomb shelter by the pheasantry? Next to the bent-over hornbeam?"

Larry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that one."

They carried on picking their way through the muck for a few more moments.

"How'd you know about my cave?"

Jan recalled their last encounter better than he necessarily wanted to. "If you're going to 'commune with nature' while you're naked, don't run straight back 'home'."

"Hey, I had no choice ― they were coming after me with pans!"

"There is always a 'choice' other than terrorising the sausages out of a group of campers."

"I don't do that stuff anymore. Wieder, remember?"

In fairness, Jan hadn't seen Larry for a while. At least not in a Police capacity. Perhaps whatever he was doing to follow the 'wieder' path was working.

They finally crept out of the briar edge and to the housing estate where the Spyder was parked. The cold bit in the early February nine-knot wind and Jan scrambled to get the plastic snack sheets over both seats before they both strapped in. He turned the heating in the car on full.

"Right, where am I dropping you off? Portland Police Department?"

"Naw, I'll call in the car loss later. Too damn cold. I've got a buddy living on the west side of the forest ring-road. I'm sure he won't begrudge me a hot shower."

"No problem." Jan signalled his way into traffic as he turned onto Southlands drive and made his way over to Larry's buddy's place. He was genuinely grateful for the tip-off, however dubious the motives. At least now he knew that even if he had to keep returning to the hiding place, he had a chance of finding Jason down there. And he'd have to come out for food at some point. It only took ten minutes to reach the place: a two-floored home with huge front windows, picket fence, and a lawn with a life of its own. Larry skipped up to the door and banged. It was opened presently by a reluctant-looking guy in flannel who waved him in. Larry turned back and flipped him a thumbs-up, then went inside. Jan was about to call Nick to see how he'd got on with Lloyd senior when his cell rang.

It was Wu, and Nick was badly hurt.

Jan took the Spyder out of park and floored the gas.

**X x X**

Marie stomped across the hospital car park, hoping that Renard wasn't with Nick. Not that she was afraid to see him, but she didn't care for conversation right now. And frankly she'd rather kiss a Lebensauger with herpes than have him see, with that secret smile, that he'd spooked her. Nick WAS a Grimm. Ok, so Reed Burkhardt was probably more notable from his absence from the Grimm landscape than his presence, but it was outrageous of Renard to claim to know anything about Nick's father, or his homelife. Huffing irritably, she pulled her sleeves up and slammed the sixth floor button to the neurology ward. It didn't take long to find Nick.

He wasn't alone. Marie hung back at the doorway and watched the sleeping figure in the seat next to him. She mumbled slightly in her sleep and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before drifting off again. Knowing how to be silent, Marie approached the woman curiously. She was around her own age, smartly dressed in a pantsuit and with her sensible shoes kicked off, the strap of her bag wrapped round her leg. A warrant badge on her belt gleamed reflection in the darkness. Nick's Lieutenant? Maybe even his Captain, in this day and age?

The woman looked like someone who hadn't slept well in a couple of weeks, taking the weight of the world on her shoulders. Actually no - Marie looked at the tight, anxious expression and took in the clothes crumpled in different places from sitting in a different chair for hours. Maybe the lady was very worried about one person in particular. Marie silently thanked her for watching over Nick and went round the other side of the bed to take a better look at him.

He was in her shadow, so she gently tilted his face and cringed slightly at the mess on his head. Even in the dim light from the corridor, she could see the blue lump from eyebrow, disappearing up into his hair-line, and the fairly deep cut along the hairline, which had been sealed with a combination of sutures, surgical glue and steri-strips. Poor kid. She'd had worse, of course, and he'd have worse when his Grimm kicked in (unless he turned out to be stronger than any of them), but for now, pain enough.

She smoothed down a rogue tuft of hair and chuckled silently at the crumpled expression of confusion on his face. It made her think of Reed after Nick's fifth birthday party. A moment of poor teamwork and youthful excitement put Reed between Nick's swinging kanebo and the piñata, and they couldn't get any sense out the man for days after that. Nick had always been ridiculously strong, out of proportion to his relatively slender build, and with an unsuspicious, lively curiosity about the world and people around him… like his Pa. Both so, so trusting. As he grew up, his physical strength was her single reassurance that there was a Grimm-in-the-making in him... somewhere.

"Aunt M'rie? Why'dya take the catapult? Was killing apples with that."

She smiled at his sulk and put her hand on his, replying in a low murmur (and exactly as she had done in 1993), trying to keep him dreaming, and asleep. She couldn't face a conversation right now about why she hadn't returned his calls for a few weeks. What to say? 'I had human wolves to hunt'? "Catapults are for men, not boys."

"I'm a man." He folded his arms crossly in his sleep.

You are now, Marie thought mournfully. How fast the time goes. She gazed up at the clock, knowing she had to make this quick, but waited for him to slide properly back into sleep before saying what she needed to.

"So much like your Pa. Your Pa was fine, in his way. He and his bloodline didn't fit. That's all. He couldn't do what was necessary." Marie put a hand on Nick's shoulder. "You've got inner steel, Nick. I've seen you get mad - I know you can. It's in you somewhere. You've got to be like your mom, now, and follow things through, ok? Don't rest 'till you're done. Always take your responsibilities seriously."

Because you're one of the last.

"And... get well soon."

Marie got to her feet as the woman in the chair stirred slightly again. Her nasty cold put her off making the three-hour drive back home tonight. She'd find a motel instead. There were several cheap ones scattered around the feeder roads to the I5. She headed back to her car.

**X x X**

Jan grabbed his holdall from the trunk, locked up and stomped over to the basement lift, shuddering with cold. His body did not 'do' the cold and he was aching from suppressing a woge. Not that members of the general public were in danger of seeing a wet lion in the car-park (it took hypothermia for that to happen), but the energy involved in remaining fully human was draining. He gave way to tiredness a little bit and staggered into the lift as it opened, accidentally knocking a short, fierce-looking woman as she strode out.

He turned to flick her an apologetic smile then caught her gaze and smacked backwards against the rear wall of the lift in shock. She followed like lightning, grabbing his shirt and producing a thin knife, poking it into the gap between his bottom two right ribs. But it was her eyes that got his pulse racing.

After the briefest flash of silver, he fell into a world of technicolour nightmare where he gave way to Koninglowen rage: taking apart the two Drangzorn who'd attacked him at the container yard; finally snapping with Halston and throwing him across the office and through Wilson's office window. He screwed his eyes shut, then breathed out slowly. He hadn't done any of those things. In a brief, dark moment, he might have wanted to, but he hadn't. He hung onto that. Back on firmer mental ground, Jan snatched down for the knife to pull it away, but the Grimm had already done so, herself.

He opened his eyes warily and met hers, making efforts towards a truce. "Is this your way of indicating you're having a night off, Ma'am?"

"Ma'am?" She chuckled slightly and put her weapon away. "Haven't heard that for a while. Not that I dislike it."

He straightened as she stepped back and looked him up and down almost curiously. This was no surprise to him: traditional meetings between his kind and Grimms involved one of them dying, not some uneasy kind of back-and-forth. Her gaze settled on his badge and he wasn't entirely sure from her expression whether his status as a cop was earning him any brownie points or not.

The lift doors closed behind them and the insistent electronic voice of the control panel, installed to harass the blind, told them to pick a floor.

"You're not of your kind," she observed eventually. "You have an ancient, protective air about you, Pride King."

"Protective? I should hope so. But I'm just a cop. And... I'm not a King."

"You're a KONINGlowen. The clue's in the name"

"It's purely ... physical differentiation," he panted, "I heal fast, I've got the Lowen strength in human form, unlike the rest of my genus, and I don't woge unless I choose to, or..." God, his pulse was still going through the roof. He could still see murder in the back of his mind. Bodies in the container yard… blood on his hands…

"..Or if you're physically incapacitated. As now." Her eyes glinted.

He let the teeth come through to show that he was down, but not out. "Not _that_ incapacitated, Ma'am."

"Oh, calm down. It's not in my interests to harm a Patriarch. I'm just a little surprised to find one in Koninglowen form."

He had no clue what she was talking about and cared even less. He'd been called that before by wesen parents, but usually in a grateful moment after having their young child restored, or adult child removed from a violent partner.

"Besides, you're clearly no threat to man nor beast."

Jan chuckled disbelievingly. "Wow. You managed to make that compliment… disparaging."

"A tame Koninglowen is of limited use ―or threat ― from where I'm standing."

"I'd like to think that I'm a proper threat to the bad ones."

She gave him a sad sort of smile. "The really bad ones don't come with readily-presentable evidence, so… you're at a bit of a disadvantage, there."

"This is not a conversation to have with a cop."

"Unless, of course, you've been creating your own evidence, in which case you're in the _perfect_ job."

Jan looked at her steadily, pressed the doors-open button, then leant in the doorway to silently encourage her to get the hell out. He wanted to her to piss off, but he wasn't about to piss off a Grimm.

"So you've never manipulated a scene?"

"Not yet."

"Never been tempted?"

"Yes." But Jan was a strong believer in natural retribution, or 'Karma'. "But I generally find... that you get what you give, and―

She snorted and stepped out of the lift. "Forgive me Mr Hallmark, but I've been doing this Wesen-policing role a little longer than you, and all this 'people-are-as-people-do' and 'pay-it-forward' stuff... as heartwarming as it is, it's all just Forest Gump bullshit. The most surprising of people can let you down. My ancestors left profiling records for a reason, and I trust them from long, long experience of stopping evil people in their tracks."

"Perhaps I've been lucky enough to have different experiences." He kept his voice as level as possible. It wasn't that he doubted the basic truth behind a lot of wesen profiles, and he depended on them a lot himself. But working on building some of the relationships he now had with other 'dangerous' species members, as with Henri, had resulted in some of his better 'luck'. "I suggest a mutual philosophy of each-to-their-own. But stay the hell off my patch."

She shot him a Grimm smile. "Happy to. For now. You go do your whole species-integration thing in Oregon, go build some playgrounds for a bunch of Maushertz... see how far it gets you in the long run."

Jan smiled thinly and jabbed at the doors-closed button, refusing to rise to her tone. If she wanted fewer violent-natured Wesen in the world, she had a funny way of achieving it. He'd felt quite peaceful until running into her, but now….

"Good evening, Ma'am."

She dropped a mock curtsy as the doors closed. "And to you."

"Patronising bint," he muttered at the doors.

"Heard that!"

"Don't care!"

He was angry enough for that to be true until he got to the sixth floor, but then post-Grimm shock took over. Blood everywhere, every time he blinked. His hands hot with it, his teeth not retracting…

…Jan almost dropped out of the lift, feeling the combined effects of cold, low blood sugar and adrenaline swarming through him, and propped himself up against the corridor wall opposite Wilkes' room, trying to get a grip. He was working quite effectively on slowing his breathing down when he was tackled at waist-height by a teeny dynamo nurse who rammed him butt-down on the corridor floor, shoving his head between his knees and slamming a paper bag over his nose and mouth.

"Nice and easy honey, slow breaths..."

"I'm ok, really," he managed, pulling the bag away. "I just need to―" eat a little, he would've added, but he was silenced and subjected to non-consensual rustling as the bag was put back. Behind the nurse, he saw Wilkes chuckling into his oxygen supply.

The nurse was the kindly lady in her fifties who'd led the team helping him to 'recover' during his part of Operation Snack. She looked so sympathetic to his current plight that he felt totally ashamed of himself for the drama piece the day before ― even if it was in a good cause.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm a complete pest."

She patted his hand. "You know…. It's so _brave_ of you to try the lifts again, so soon. But ah... just while you're visiting, or until you see a hypnotist, or... something... perhaps you should stick to the stairs?"

Wilkes turned himself on his side in the background so he could laugh properly without coughing so badly. Jan reddened and got slowly to his feet, even more embarrassed to be given a hand up from Captain Wilson, who'd emerged blearily from Nick's end of the corridor, her jacket over her arm.

"Are you alright, Jan? There's… absolutely no colour in your face."

"I just need to eat," he mumbled. "But I'm alright. How's Nick?"

"Sleeping. But he talks a lot. Don't stay too late, Jan."

"Yes Ma'am," he mumbled, but saw her go back into Wilkes' room, where, no doubt, she was about to do what she'd just told him not to do. He trudged down to Nick's room, closing the door quietly behind him. Nick was spread out on the bed, his head tipped back a little over the edge of his pillow. His chest moved up and down evenly. Relieved that Nick was sleeping reasonably soundly, Jan drew all the blinds and stripped out of his wet clothes down to his boxers. He towelled off using the spare blanket from Nick's cabinet and―

"They're at it again! Why're you nekkid?"

The indignant voice from Nick's bed made him leap about six inches in the air and nearly turn his ankle over on the way down. "Jesus, Nick!"

"Wha' happened to you?"

"Nick?" Jan approached Nick's bed cautiously, not entirely sure if he was awake or not, since he'd dropped his head back down and his face seemed peaceful, even as his hands patted frantically up and down his front.

"Cloze still on. It's all ok."

"Ok-aay..." Jan pulled the blanket back over Nick, waited for him to settle down, then stuffed himself into dry socks, jeans, long-sleeved red thermal and white sweater as fast as he could manage. Then he kicked his holdall under the bed, ran down to the canteen for three sandwiches and a Pepsi (which took a frustratingly short time to consume), then dozed off in the seat by the bed.

: : : : :

The sound of running steps and the feeling of being too late for something jerked Jan awake. He noticed Nick missing from bed, the time (1am), and the disengaged drip within the same frantic glance and bolted out of Nick's room. Ok, first - Gents' room. He jogged to the oncology wash-rooms and saw Wilkes pointing vigorously towards the stairs. Jan took them three at a time, trying not to panic about Nick making a break for it after such a nasty slam to the head. The stairs led down to a fire door at the rear of the hospital rather than into the carpark, so he had to sprint after Nick on foot.

He picked up speed and closed the gap: dizziness or confusion was taking Nick's edge away. Which was good in that Jan managed to close the gap to yelling distance. But also bad, because Nick wasn't exactly watching out for traffic. Jan snapped his hands to his head in a split second of dread as a taxi whipped behind Nick, blaring furiously, but the kid just kept going. It took Jan a moment to realise the direction ― Southlands Drive. Where he'd been picked up in the first place. Did he think he'd dropped something there, or what?

Jan kept pace through the long alley joining the hospital grounds to the upper part of the through road and was relieved beyond measure to see that Nick had stopped. Jan dropped his sprint to a run, then a jog, to get his breath back before he spoke. Nick stood next to a bollard, staring around the street as if wondering why the hell everything was so quiet.

"He's gone. Where's everyone gone?"

"It's one in the morning, Nick. You banged your head _hard_ earlier. Remember?"

Nick put tentative fingers straight to the blunt cut on his head. The shock made him stagger and Jan braced him before he lost his footing.

"'ve got to finish the job."

"Listen, we've got Charles Lloyd in custody."

"We're not done. There was… a funny smell. Remember? In the basement? The kid…"

Jan did remember, but it troubled him that this appeared to be on the top of Nick's priorities, even when barely capable of being coherent. Jan put his hands on his shoulders. His partner looked up, his eyes huge and confused in the half-light. "I do remember, yes. _I_ will follow that through. YOU need to go back to bed. You're hurt."

"It's a big responsibility," Nick said suddenly, miserably.

"What is, Nick?"

Nick didn't seem to know. He stared at the ground and shivered.

Jan peeled his sweater off and pulled it carefully over Nick's head, trying not to snag the dressings on his forehead. Nick was alert enough to get his own arms into the sleeves, but once dressed, still looked completely lost and then proved this by heading off in the wrong direction. "No, this way…"

Jan steered Nick gently back towards the hospital, an arm round the back of his shoulders, and dialled for a pick-up. He could've disembowelled whoever it was that gave Nick the impression that his 'responsibilities' were to be followed through at the cost of everything else, himself included. A devotion to duty, he applauded. But an inability to balance the requirements of the job and personal safety… that led to disaster. As his previous rookie found. Jan's one consolation with Nick's overzealous sprint out of the hospital was that he was confused. He was sure ― at least, he sincerely hoped ― that Nick would never do something like that if he knew what he was doing.

A lime-green Honda turned the corner at the first cross roads and pulled in next to them, and Jan huffed a huge sigh of relief to see Wu climbing out, hissing sympathetically at the state of Nick.

"How did you…?"

"I got a Wilkes-o-gram," Wu said. "Which went 'cough splutter, Burkhardt's just left hospital, cough, head injury, hack hack, please help track him down'. It turns out that the Captains have me on speed dial so that they can haul a 'reliable man' from his bed at one in the morning."

"You're a man in a million, John."

"Well thank you, Jan," Wu said dryly. "That makes it all worthwhile. C'mon. Into the lime-mobile."

Nick stared at the car blankly for a moment or so. "It's very, very green, Wu."

"So horribly green, and yet strangely, it has a perfectly working engine. In, Nick."

They bundled him in gently, and Nick nodded off before they even pulled back into the carpark.

X x X

At first, Nick realised that he couldn't really feel his legs, which wasn't uncommon when stirring from a hangover this significant. So in the first few seconds, while he registered his dry mouth and pounding head, this didn't cause any undue concern.

Until he realised that he couldn't remember anything about the previous night. And, on the heels of that, couldn't remember drinking anything that would cause him to not remember anything about the previous night. And yet, his head, really, really hurt. He couldn't get his eyes open, and he still couldn't feel his legs. Panic entered.

"J-Ja-an!? What happened to my―"

"Shhh honey, he's sleeping. He is SO tired."

Nick recognised the voice immediately as belonging to Hayley-from-neurology, which would perhaps explain why her concern dial was pointing in completely the wrong direction. She wore her crush on Jan publicly, like a slushie spill down her front.

"I can't feel my legs," he tried again.

"Oh, that's because you've got Jan's legs on you."

"What? You swapped our legs?" He realised how ridiculous that sounded as soon as he'd said it. They'd need some kind of consent form for that. "What the hell do you mean― AGHHH!"

"Nick? You alright?"

As Jan woke and spoke, Nick felt a huge weight rise off his thighs, and pins and needles stabbed him up and down from hips to toes, making him writhe under the blanket. _Christ_ that hurt…

"Yeah!" Nick squeaked, waiting for the pain to stop.

"Oh thank god… you've been out a fair while. How do you feel?"

"I feel like I died... and came back as a migraine," he managed, feebly.

"Yes… I remember that feeling." A light hand rested on his shoulder. "Is he allowed to drink, Hayley? He's very hoarse."

"Sips only. I don't want him to vomit."

Nick had never been so grateful for the sound of retreating shoes, or for the bland coldness of water as Jan eased the head end of the bed up and gently engineered his hand round the cup and up towards his mouth. After a false, splashy start, he quaffed the lot down, ignoring Hayley's 'sips' edict. He was grateful to Jan for not ticking him off about it, and for refilling his cup, even. Nick sipped the second lot of water, trying to swallow without making his head throb worse, and eventually, he felt up to talking.

"What happened?"

"Well... I've only hard the details third hand, but it seems that while chasing Charles Lloyd ― who is now in custody, by the way ― you cracked your head on a sign attached to a bollard… after tripping over a guide dog."

"No..." Nick croaked. This was the stuff that retirement presentation humiliations were made of. He got his eyes open, and even through blurry focus, Jan looked completely sincere.

"I'm afraid so."

"Oh...God."

"In terms of 'living it down', only the Captains, Wu, and your on-scene first aiders are aware of the circumstances, and it's going to stay that way."

Nick flashed Jan the beginnings of a grateful smile, but it died on his lips as he realised how serious Jan looked. "Uh... what don't I know?"

"Do you remember getting up last night, Nick?"

Nick frowned. If he felt this way NOW, he couldn't imagine himself even wanting to make it as far as the can last night, when he surely would've been feeling a hell of a lot worse. "Uh no... did I do something?" Horror struck as he realised that Wilkes was on the same floor as him. "I didn't try smuggling non-existent snacks, did I?"

Jan burst out laughing and the strain went out of his face. "No, you didn't try _that_. Don't worry. But you did try chasing Charles Lloyd."

"What?" That made no kind of sense at all.

"It took quite a lot of sprinting and a ride home in Wu's car to get you back to bed again. Hence the leg-entrapment, by the way. I thought you'd panic a little if you woke cuffed to the bed rail."

"Probably would've done, yeah..." Nick felt a little overloaded. He wasn't aware of being a sleep sprinter. He looked down at himself and saw the enormous white sweater. "I guess it was cold, out."

"I tried to get it off you when we got you back to your room, but you were quite resistant," Jan said mildly, then sighed. "Look, I realise that running off last night was not something you _chose_ to do, but I need to ask you a favour. While you're working with me, don't EVER, EVER check yourself out against medical advice, or go out fixing the world on your own ― at least while you're capable of making that decision, alright?"

Nick blinked, wondering, again, what Jan's previous partner had actually done, because he was pretty sure he'd never done anything to give Jan the impression he'd do anything quite so… nutsy. Not while awake, at least. "Ok. I won't."

"When I caught up with you, you were in a bad way, going on about 'finishing the job' and 'big responsibilities'. I just wanted to make a point of telling you that there are going to be a lot of cases, and that taking things personally comes with the job. But there's only one Nick, and you're _always_ more important than the case." Jan gave him an awkward sort of smile. "Sorry. Lecture over, I'll get us some tea."

Nick found that actually, he didn't mind that last bit of the lecture. Jan could be bossy, fussy, and sometimes infuriatingly calm when he wanted a ranting partner against life's little irritations, but on the whole it was like having a big brother around, keeping an eye out for him. Jan's lectures, he could cope with.

"Oh, Jan? How did I get here in the first place? Did a squad car call the accident in?"

"Well... happily... you had your accident within about half a minute of Abi and Juliette getting out of a taxi. So there was plenty of good first aid going around."

"HAPPILY? Juliette saw me trip over the guide dog? What's so fucking happy about that?" God, that was so, so unfair. He felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. "Why? _Why_ did she have to see that?"

"Life is full of harsh little injustices," Jan beamed, "but if it lifts your spirits, Abi's already called the nurse desk this morning, and Juliette's giving you a ride home later, if your MRI is clear."

As Jan marched off, Nick rested back a little and went into a semi-snooze. But then snapped himself out of it. Life had to go on. He made a mental note to completely ace his MRI test, and to be upright, non-smelly and totally shaved by the time Juliette showed up. Ok, maybe not completely shaved. As for hair, he might go for something a little ruffled and vaguely rogueish. Just so that she could disapprove and smooth it down a little. She looked like a hair-smoot―

"Nick, you know that little orchestra that plays in your head whenever you start thinking about Juliette? Just so you know, everyone else can hear it too."

"Silly beam again, huh?"

"Indeed." Jan handed him his tea. "I'm sorry to run, but I've had a call from Wilson. They've tried questioning Lloyd about the murder, and he's saying nothing. So I'm going to have a crack at him, to see if we can get him to talk about his son."

Nick nodded and took a sip of his blazing beverage. The design on the redbush teabag tab caught his eye: a particularly tranquil, yet smug looking lion was surveying his terrain over a morning cup of South African leaves. While sitting up at a wicker table, of course. He giggled and showed Jan. "Reminds me of you, contemplating your kitchen at breakfast time."

Jan stared at him for a long, _long_, unamused moment, then hoiked his holdall over his shoulder and headed for the door. "Get well _soon_, Nick."

As Jan swept away, Nick tried probing at the edges of his memory for the moment they'd let the kid loose from the cellar. Because that was the last thing he really remembered before taking chase after Charles Lloyd... Jan sprinting after the kid with the chalk-white face and the bad teeth. But he couldn't quite remember why the outline of that memory stuck with him, and struggled for the focussed detail... the picture in his mind's eye that was hiding. He needed his pad and pen.

He pressed the nurse's button for help because he needed to get up and have a shower, wake himself up a little more. He needed to THINK.

He wasn't generally a tooth-facist... people looked how they looked, but he knew at the very least that he'd remembered the teeth because they reminded him of something else... from years and years ago.

... he just had to remember what.

**X x X**

Through the window of her office, Helen watched Lloyd being patrolled into interrogation 1, blank-faced and lost. Sean had been happy to transfer Lloyd's custody from West Side to Gresham, to see if they could progress the child-protection angle of the case, because he still wasn't talking, and the murder investigation had gone as far as it could, for now. The only words he'd spoken since his arrest were to ask them if they'd found his son. Nothing since. Maybe Jan would have better luck with him.

The man himself jogged in and booted up his PC, flicking her a polite wave as he dug through his desk, looking for something. She flicked back and dipped her face down into her hand. He was in casuals. God, she couldn't handle it when he was in casuals.

Red, thermal top - V-neck, rolled-up sleeves. Huge, toned, tanned arms. Broad in the shoulders and chest, trim in the waist. But solid-trim, not all teeny-waisted and triangular. It was a firm, well-proportioned bodyguard's body. Not a body-builder's bod―.

_Get a grip, shallow woman!_

Helen gave herself a mental slap, snatching up the duty roster and staring fiercely at the last month's officer shifts, wondering why this wasn't fitting with the salary balance. This was the kind of thing she should be mulling over. It was completely unprofessional of her to even _think_ about how completely unprofessional Jan's fitted top made her feel.

He rapped on the door. "You alright ma'am?"

"Fine!" she spluttered. "Lloyd's in interrogation 1. Good luck!"

"Thanks..." he retreated, knowing a silent go-the-hell-away signal when he saw one. Bless him.

And with his fitted top out of her line of sight, the missing shift pattern finally sprung out from her papers and her numbers finally balanced. Hey-ho. She sent a sign-off email to the accountants on the salary bank and decided to go watch Jan interrogate. It was good to be up to speed in case she needed to take Nick's side of things over while Jan hunted for Jason Lloyd. He couldn't be everywhere at once.

She let herself into the viewing room moments after Jan let himself into interrogation 1 and sat opposite Lloyd. The guy lurched back in his chair, eyes wide, and she wondered if they'd crossed paths before, but Jan said something to him which calmed him down a little, then his shoulders slumped again in resignation. Then Jan snapped the sound on.

"...I'm not interested in any of that. I'm here to talk to you about Jason."

Lloyd folded his arms, so Jan leant forward, ducking his head down a little into Lloyd's line of sight.

"Look Charles, I know where he is. Straight after I'm done talking to you, I'm going straight to his little hideaway and I'm going to stalk him until he talks to me, even if it takes days. And then I'm going to get him to the hospital for antibiotics and a nutritional boost because he is clearly very, very unwell. So... if there's anything you need me to know before I find him, now is the time to say it."

Lloyd looked up. First at the one-way screen, then at Jan, and ― frustratingly for Helen, no great lip-reader ― he mouthed something.

"Yes, I know. I saw him for myself. So... you fostered him? From your wife's family?"

"We took him in, but he was old enough to know he didn't want to be fostered. He was eleven when they died."

"I'm sorry. What happened?"

Helen saw the guy drop his hands down into his face, then he mumbled something. It sounded a lot like... "Blood… bath."

"He was... a difficult child," Lloyd went on, on a roll apparently, now that someone other than him cared about what happened to his kid. "Angry all the time. Didn't know why he couldn't be with people... more like his parents. Natalie and I ... fought a lot. It was just our way, you know? We're not peaceful people."

"So his parents died and as far as he was concerned, he was with 'aliens'. A degree of rage is... to be expected."

"Oh don't patronise me, man. I _know_ that. But he didn't calm down. Ever. He wouldn't eat what we made him. Wouldn't touch a vegetable. Wouldn't go to school. Wouldn't work, either. Wouldn't see a counsellor. Wouldn't talk in more than a mutter. Wouldn't make eye-contact. He just shut himself off. And then ran away."

"Going through changes?" Jan asked quietly, and Lloyd simply nodded.

Helen had to strain to hear them, wondering why they were suddenly speaking in 'murmur'. All guys went through changes. There was no need to be so... grave about it. But perhaps that was why Jan had the interrogation record that he did: by paying surplus respect to people's standard anxieties.

Jan dipped his voice even further. "When was the first major change?"

"From fifteen. He moved out."

"You and your wife reported him missing."

Lloyd huffed a sigh. "Yes, that's because he _did _go missing. But he showed up a few months later and asked if he could bunk in the basement from time to time. He didn't want to be out of touch. He just didn't... want to live with us. Can't blame him. We tried to keep him out of it, but we had… violent fights."

Helen cocked her head in interest and put a call through to the morgue. She got Harper's voicemail and left a message asking if Mrs Lloyd had any defensive wounds, or evidence of prior abuse. A picture was slowly building of a couple suffering equal hatred. Perhaps the death was an accident, and Jason took off because he'd witnessed it. She tuned back into Jan's conversation with Lloyd.

"... when we got to your property, the storm hatch doors on the basement were double-padlocked from the outside. I'm sure you can understand how that looks. Were you trying to keep people out?"

Lloyd nodded wearily. "A lot of problem kids in the area. As for locking him in... uh… no. There are stairs down to the basement on the inside, you know. He even had keys to the front door. He didn't have to live like a damn hermit, in our place, or out in the woods. He just...chose to."

"Has he been showing signs of greater paranoia or irrationality, recently?"

Lloyd simply nodded. "He had wild claustrophobia. Couldn't think straight. Even when he started the night in the basement, he'd run out screaming into the woods or something. I was beginning to think he was hearing voices. You know… Jason was hard work, but not violent. He would never have lashed out unless―"

Helen saw the guy cut himself short and go into a mad, wild-eyed nervous twitch as he realised he might have begun the admission of his son's manslaughter of his wife.

Jan put a hand out and grabbed Lloyd's wrist. "It was an accident, wasn't it? What happened? Jason went into a panic attack, struck her, and she fell?"

"No, no... no... I killed her..."

"You're lying!"

"I'm not!"

"Mr Lloyd! For God's sake, listen! Your son has scurvy. It's at a dangerous stage, but treatable, and there's every chance that with the right help, he can get some kind of life back. But you're going to be no help at all if you're stuck in Oregon Pen for twenty years!"

"Scurvy?" The guy looked as shell-shocked as Helen felt. "It doesn't exist anymore..."

"If he's been living and feeding himself as a vagrant for two years, what are the chances of him prioritising fruit in his diet if he wouldn't touch a vegetable, either? It fits. The pallidity, the bleeding gums, the mental distress... the ... smell!"

Lloyd looked horrified and relieved at the same time. "I thought... he'd gone mad. All that time alone."

Jan got to his feet quickly, but spoke gently to the no-longer-such-a-suspect. "It probably didn't help. But I've got a friend who's had similar problems that he can talk to. First, we need to get him back. I'm going to get Jason. You, Mr Lloyd, can make a statement explaining the accident. There's a strong argument for diminished responsibility. Talk to my Captain, please."

Helen emerged into the corridor at the same time as Jan and clapped him on the arm, startling him. "Oh, sorry. But, excellent job. I'll go on in there, finish up. Is there anything else you need from me?"

Jan bit his lip, looking uncomfortable. "Permission for one thing?"

"What's that?"

"I'm hoping to be able to persuade Jason out from his hiding hole myself, but there's a possibility that he'll refuse to cooperate with me. If it comes to that, I'd like to take Nick out with me to talk to him. He was fostered by his aunt after his parents died, and..."

"And Jason's more likely to relate. Sure. So do it. What's the problem?"

"Nick has an over-evolved sense of diligence and may say yes, even if he's not up to it. He damn near got himself killed last night running out after Lloyd."

She sighed and took his hand a moment. "I'm sure you can explain the situation in a way that doesn't make him feel pressured to help out."

"Alright. Thank you, Ma'am."

She watched him stride off, still not looking happy about it, as if he were asking Nick to drag himself out of a hospital bed and join him on a dangerous bust, rather than talk sense into a teenager.

She appreciated his anxiety ― Simon almost got himself killed because he had absolutely no concept of his own mortality ― but at some point, Jan had to get past the fact that Nick wasn't Simon. And that he wasn't responsible for Simon deciding to storm a room full of guys running girls and crack and packing heat. Twice. Doing that once, storming in without waiting for Jan, was rookie stupidity, and Jan only just got there in time to get him out in one piece. Running in _again_, to prove he was right about what the guys in the room were doing, was career-ending insanity. Jan wasn't in a position to rescue Simon the second time, and she'd only just managed to get to the scene of the hotel-room shooting to save Simon's life. The damage was done, though: Simon wouldn't walk again, and became almost a martyr figure to the narcotics guys, who insisted that his bust-in got a quarter-mill of class-A off the streets. Jan still just felt shit about it all.

But… he'd moved on a little. Lightened up a bit again, largely thanks to Nick himself.

Helen smiled wryly to herself as she pushed open the door to interrogation 1 to speak to Lloyd. At least Jan had _broached_ the possibility of asking Nick to help out while on sick leave. That, for the brother hen, was big progress.

**X x X**

Jan scrabbled for his cell as soon as he got to his car and plugged it into the onboard speaker so he could call Axel while he drove. His one-time school master was the only person he could discuss wesen issues with apart from Stefan, his half-brother, and Stefan would probably be out on active duty at the moment with the marine corps. He just needed a dose of perspective. He felt like he was walking around wearing a sandwich board lately, one that said "I am secretly a lion."

First the Grimm-sighting, then Nick with his Rooibos teabag tag, then his near heart attack to find that his Captain had been watching him question Lloyd. God knows what she made of the earlier parts of their conversation. Still, she didn't look like she was anything but happy with the results, so he tried not to stress about that too much.

He navigated his way to Axel's number, ignoring a text on his screen from his kid sister demanding to know when he'd be home. Francine and her abrupt communications could wait. He would go 'home' for the requisite three family-visiting days over Queen Beatrix's national birthday celebrations in April, and not before, if he could avoid it.

Axel picked up on the fourth ring, and as he was pulling out into traffic.

"Hoi Jan, wacht even, ik moet naar de badkamer..."

Jan grinned as Axel went to the bathroom to lock himself in so they could talk in private. And in English. Axel's ancient mother had the mysterious skill of being both severely deaf and an outstanding eavesdropper.

"Oke, Jan. So tell me... in what new astonishing ways have you nearly blown your cover?"

Jan summarised the number of times Nick had picked up on his cat tendencies, and Axel took a sharp intake of breath on the last one, with the teabag.

"Ah Jan... you are not going to like this suggestion, but... Ok. How can I put this? Have you considered that perhaps your partner is a Grimm?"

Jan laughed a little desperately, trying not to relive his lift nightmare while he was behind the wheel of the Spyder. "No chance. Nick is an astute profiler, but he's also a calm, kind-hearted―"

"And so are you, Jan, yet you are Koninglowen. A complete divorce from the 'type' is not so inconceivable, is it? When I compare you to your sister and grandfather..." Axel broke off to shudder at the other end of the line, "and besides, do you not operate on the principle that the profiling is only correct in context?"

"No, that's not it," Jan said. "I mean you're right… I don't rely on the wesen achetypes to deal with people, Grimms included, but I _know_ he's not a Grimm. I've met a Grimm. Nick is definitely... not a Grimm."

"_You met a Grimm_?" Axel hissed. "Godverdomme, are you ok?"

"Shaken, but... yeah. God, Axel, it's like everyone says. I looked into her eyes and it was like falling through the bloody circles of hell. And I supposedly have a relatively clean conscience!"

"Did you fight?"

"No. We talked… sort of… then she let me go. Killing me wasn't in her interests, evidently." His hands shook on the steering wheel. "No, Nick _isn't_ a Grimm. All I see when I look in his eyes is a man who wants coffee, a peaceful life, and a date with a red-head."

"Well, I'm glad you're ok. Mostly, ok. What was this Grimm like?"

"Rude."

Axel laughed. "They're known for worse, you know. Is there going to be a territory clash?"

"No. At least I don't think so. She gave me the very strong message that she thought I was a complete kumbaya-singing wimp, but she said she'd stay off my patch and I think I actually believe her."

"Well, that's something. Look... with Nick, maybe he's just responding to your natural traits, you know? Maybe the way forward is to _let_ him tease you about it. Just find something to tease him with in return, so that you're not so threatened by the subject of your lionesque tendencies. Or distract him with some appalling new habit. And you could try lying more, you know. It would be forgiven. The Gesetzbuch Ehrencodex allows it. Encourages it, even. Ah damn... mother wants the bathroom..."

Jan smiled. "Thanks Axel. For the calm. And the tactics. Love to your mother."

They rang off just as Jan reached the edge of the Briar path leading to Hendrick's pet cave. Knowing where he was going, this time, it only took half an hour to jog there, and then he spent a fruitless hour talking through the reinforced bomb shelter door to the enraged, paranoid, expletive-loaded teenager, who now appeared to be suffering agoraphobia rather than claustrophobia. Evidently, there was no way in hell he was opening up to a killing machine like a fucking Koninglowen.

Eventually he stepped back in defeat. "Alright, alright. I'm going."

Hopefully his non-threatening parting shot would keep Jason where he was, for now. He didn't want to give Jason any cause to feel that he needed to leave the shelter, or it may be a nightmare to find him again after the lucky tip-off. But he needed Nick for this one - no question. He'd come back with Nick tomorrow, providing his MRI scan had been clear, of course.

He jogged back to the car, wondering what he'd do if Jason started saying things that gave his own wesen nature away, but then... there was no reason he would. Not to a human detective, at least. If he could live half in the wild this long without reports of sightings of strange, upright mountain lion-like beasts hitting local press, then he was probably more than aware of the continued need to keep his mauvais secret - ill or not. If Nick couldn't talk him out, then he'd go back and pull wesenrank, kicking the door down and carrying him unconscious from the bunker, if he had to. But that really was a last resort.

**X x X**

"...No, no, it's fine. Really," Nick reassured for what felt like the eightieth time, as Jan drove super-carefully to the forest. He was seriously tired, but not sick. "The head's still sore, but I'm not dizzy or anything."

"Good. I appreciate it. Particularly after my lecture about the importance of sick-leave. How was your ride home with Juliette?"

Fantastic. Life-changing. Heart-lifting. "It was ok."

Jan laughed. "So what happened? Did she tell you that Dale had moved abroad? Or fallen into a sewage vat, perhaps?"

Nick blushed, wishing he wasn't quite so transparent to his partner. "No... she just said that they had a difference in opinion over how much time was 'too much' time spent with Abi. And that he was really busy all the time, so on the times he was actually free, he was resentful that _she_ wasn't."

"That's got to be a strain on a relationship."

"Yes," Nick agreed happily. But he wouldn't let himself dwell on that, right now. He didn't break people up. He just hoped mournfully that they'd do it all by themselves.

But.. no more talk of Juliette. It was time to get down to business. Because, as suspected, a careful shower and a night of proper sleep had put his brain back in gear. "I think I know what's wrong with Jason."

Jan cocked a brow. "Go on?"

"He's got scurvy. I recognised the signs."

Jan gaped gratifyingly for a moment, and Nick revelled in his mini-reveal. "I'd come to the same conclusion myself, but how... how the _hell_ did you work that out, while off work?"

"Laurie had it. It took a while to place the smell of bad teeth, but ― WHOA!" The Spyder shot over to the wrong side of the road for a heart-stopping moment before Jan corrected himself. Nick's voice came out in a squeak. "That was a little…scary… Jan!"

"Sorry," Jan muttered, pale. "A nerve in my hand jumped."

"Hell of a jump, Jan." Nick let his pulse settle a little. "Laurie was a guy I became really good friends with when I was a kid. He was a German exchange student who suffered really bad neglect back home and started showing signs of it soon after starting school. He had this serious odour - like the one Jason left in the basement, and his gums bled a lot. He was really, really sick."

"Did he survive?"

"Oh he's fine! The scurvy was picked up by the school nurse and he was treated for it. A week of vitamin and mineral boosting and enforced orange juice, and he was cured. He never went home though. It must have involved some kind of paperwork nightmare, but his exchange family got really fond of him and he stayed here. He works for the Parks service on the Appalachian trail, now."

"That's good to hear. So, as you know about the mental symptoms, you won't be surprised if Jason says a lot of... strange things while you're talking to him?"

"Uh... no. Laurie went _completely_ nuts just before he was treated. He was always really protective of me and Dula ― we kind of shared the same bullies ― but he got a little... possessive."

Jan flicked him a curious look. "How possessive?"

"Like… seriously bromantically possessive." Nick shuddered at the enduring memory of being 'claimed' by his new best-buddy.

"What happened?"

Nick was going to keep that story to himself, but figured that at least with Jan, he could trust him not to laugh his head off.

"Ok… so, a girl was trying to ask me out on a date outside home room. He marched over, flung me over his shoulder, yelled "MINE!" at the poor girl, and walked off with me. I'd only known him about two weeks at that point, and there was nothing I could do about it because he was HUGE. Like... your kind of size― Jan! Are you fucking _laughing_ at me?"

Jan pulled over at the briar path and, by way of answer, dropped forward on the steering wheel and shook with silent hysterics for a few minutes. "We're h-here," he managed eventually, between hiccups.

"Well I'm glad you think it's so funny," Nick muttered, climbing out. "It was fricking embarrassing! Being hauled off like a bride...I thought you, of all people, would've kept a straight face during that one…"

This did nothing to squash Jan's giggles and he followed grumpily as his partner led the way off to the left. It took a moment to realise that they weren't walking towards the pheasantry. "Hey, Jan? The path's over there!"

"And the quad-bike's over here," Jan called back.

Annoyance gone, Nick could've hugged him. The idea of a four-mile trek through the mud hadn't... honestly... appealed very much. The bike was shiny, new and solid-looking. "Is this yours?"

"No, I've borrowed it from a friend. Hop on."

Nick summoned his most charming beam. "Can I drive?"

"Are you well enough?"

"Oh yeah!"

Jan looked unduly worried but handed him the keys. "If you must..."

: : : : :

"LET ME _OFF_!"

"Alright! Don't roar in my ear! You can get yourself off!" Nick pulled over by the pheasantry and snapped the engine off. Jesus. Over-reaction. Just because he'd pushed a little too hard over a few oak roots...

Jan lurched off, headed for the bushes, then Nick heard retching. He sidled over guiltily.

"Ah... you ok?"

Jan emerged, looking slightly green, then went to grab a bottle of water from the bag on the back of the quadbike, swigging from it. "No! I almost lost my bloody… privates over that last hump."

"It's just… such a _cool_ bike. I got carried away."

Jan glared at him venomously for his apparently unsatisfactory apology and limped away to a log away from the bomb shelter. They'd agreed that he'd do all the talking. So Nick went up to the door, sat down outside, and prepared to bond. Jan said the kid should warm to him pretty quickly.

"Hey Jason? My name's Nick. You ok in there?"

"FUCK OFF!"

Nick sighed. This could be a long, long talk. He may even need to bore the kid into submission.

**X x X**

_**TBC…**_

_**Special cameo to come at the end of the final part, if that bribes you to read on ;)**_


	9. Each to their own (part 3)

**Thanks all for the fantastic reviews! I'm glad the 3-parter thing was ok **** otherwise I couldn't have gone into this depth.**

**I hope you continue to enjoy! Spot the bigger cameo, lol.**

**X x X**

Sean and Wu stared down at the hatches of the storm cellar at Lloyd's place while Halston and the other narcotics guys stomped in and out removing the crystal meth gear. It looked very much like the local kids had decided that the place would be vacant a little while, and had set up shop in the basement. It wouldn't go well for them when they were tracked down.

Wu was staring at the hinges of the previous storm hatch, which were warped out of shape by the doors having been yanked off. "Was there some kind of Incredible Sulk visit we need to be aware of?"

Sean had already seen the damage and wasn't as baffled as Wu. Raised voices snatched him from his contemplation and he looked over to see Halston bawling out Officer Andersen for being a little heavy-handed loading evidence into the trunk. She didn't scream back, but she wasn't taking it lying down, either, quite calmly working through a creative list of insulting ways to describe his bodily parts.

He cleared his throat and wandered over to intervene ― so much for the mediation effort ― when DeMarcos pulled over, slammed his way out of his car and thundered over to them. Andersen, he bawled out for language 'unbecoming of a female officer, for fuck's sake'; Halston he screamed at for yelling at a fellow officer in public.

"So you've mediated? Great! Worked well, didn't it? Find another way of solving your goddamned dispute because you're not getting any pussy-footing paternalism from me!"

Sean sighed quietly as DeMarcos ranted and raved until purple. _This_ was the guy running the leadership skills class for the upcoming Lieutenancy refresher boards. Still… the investigation seemed to be running off in three directions now from the original murder and he needed focus.

"Wu, what's the update from SVU?"

"Hnn?"

"SVU. Update, please."

There was something a little off with Wu today, Sean noted. He had a terrible case of the midday stares, which he was more used to seeing in Walsh or Franco with their less inhibited drinking patterns, and his sardonic mode had been in hyperdrive all morning. He decided to give the guy another half hour to ease down on the sarcasm ― or wake up, properly ― then ask him what the hell was wrong. He raised his brows expectantly in the meantime.

"... ah, yeah... sorry." Wu snapped out of his stare and focussed on the paper in front of him. "So, Captain Wilson called. Mrs Lloyd had no defensive wounds - for that particular fight, anyway. The cast taken from Lloyd's hand last night does not match the marks on his wife's face from any angle. Things are starting to look a little better for him."

Sean nodded down at his desk. "What about Lloyd's alibis, though? They all fell through."

"Ye-aah... but it was like... synchronised alibi collapse, when I look at the call times. All four of these choral society members decided, within an hour of each other, to ever-so-politely call and say that actually, they couldn't definitely remember seeing Charles Lloyd after nine in the evening, and _ever-so-sorry_ they might have given the impression that they had. To me, that's either malicious, or cowardly."

"Or both," Sean mused. "I'll make a point of noting that in the file for the DA's office."

"Are we going after them for perjury?" Wu raised a brow. "The annoyed guy in me kind of wants to. I get the impression that they want the misfit out of their choral group for good and this Lloyd guy might be a good singer, but… he was hardly born with a silver spoon in his mouth."

"Hmmm." Good question: they should, really. "Let's see what comes out of SVU's pursuit of Lloyd Junior first before we risk complicating things."

"Alright. Goin' on my break now." Wu turned to go but looked off-balance.

"What is it?"

"A short period of time during which _no_ work is going to take place."

Sean rolled his eyes. "Wu. What's wrong?"

"Sorry. I'm over-tired. Night before last, Jan and I were sent out by Wilkes in the middle of the night to retrieve Nick from downtown after he made a semi-conscious run from hospital. He tried picking up his chase after Lloyd where he left it off."

"What?" Jesus. The hospital was right next to a trunk road…

"Yeah. Not very safe. We managed to round him up, but he was... out of it. Probably would've gotten mown down by a truck if he'd wandered around alone much longer. And Nick isn't one for staying in bed. So... that was tiring. And _last_ night, at about two, I needed to put in an emergency call to remove the noisiest, most psychopathic cat _ever_ from my balcony."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want it out there!"

Sean pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to clear his post-DeMarcos headache. "Understandable. Set up the alibi re-interviews, make sure that Griffin puts the fear of God into them over potential perjury charges. Then go home."

"Thank you, Sir."

Sean called Wilson to ask if she'd heard any progress from Jan and Nick in speaking with Jason Lloyd, but not yet, apparently. He was surprised she wasn't at the hospital, and said so.

"I've got a teleconference with Interpol at two."

"What do they want?"

Wilson sighed. "They're getting a new commandant. They were doing last-minute tidy-up stuff so they could prepare briefing for him, but in the process of gathering information, they found that they didn't seem to know where half their seconded officers are. Not really my problem: I've filed all Vergeer's performance reports on time, but some jerk wants me to explain how I've managed to hold onto him for three years. Like I chained him here, or stole his passport, or something."

Sean recognised the steady, almost monotone intonation in her voice as the calm applied by someone doing an excellent job of keeping control. He strolled away with the call and dropped his voice a little. "You alright? How's Wilkes?"

"He was doing great."

"But?"

"He dropped back a little last night. He spiked a fever and they're having trouble getting it under control. He's struggling to process the antibiotics properly."

Sean's affection for his first Captain kicked in. "Want me to take the Interpol call so you can head off?"

"Thanks, really, but it needs to be me. Jan's my officer. Besides, I've already blown this call off twice, so..."

"I'll check in on Wilkes right now," Sean promised. "Just get to the General as soon as you can after your telecon."

"Oh ... Sean. I totally owe you one."

Sean jogged down to the carpark and made his way to the Pearl first to pick up a vial of Winterschlaaf preparation from Freddie Calvert's place. Then he headed for the hospital. So, Wilson thought she owed him one? Maybe. If she meant it, he'd collect, sometime. But he definitely owed Wilkes one, for sending help out after Nick. The guy's 'pussyfoot paternal' approach to officer welfare had its uses.

**X x X**

"Look," tried Nick through the door. "I've got a pretty good idea of what you've been through."

"You have no clue!"

"I'm pretty clued up on a lot of it, actually!"

Jan was proud of how light Nick managed to keep his voice. He sat outside the bunker with his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced, occasionally gesticulating conversationally as if Jason were sitting in front of him with a coffee rather than roaring single-minded abuse through the locked bunker door.

"So you know what it is to be eleven, and to see everything you know blown away and have to start again with people who don't even like you?"

Nick circled his thumbs. "I was on the thirteen end of twelve. But... yeah. I know exactly what that's like."

Jan felt that same flash of anger as he'd felt when trying to guide Nick back to his much-needed bed in the hospital. He gritted his teeth and his incisors retracted obediently. His Koninglowen rocketed to the surface very easily at the moment. He heard shuffling behind the bunker door.

"Bullshit. You're just trying to draw me out so you ask me about the Lloyds."

Nick sighed and dropped his head down into his hands. Jan held back and let him get on with it. At least Jason was yelling back at Nick, in sentences of longer than one syllable.

"Yes, I need to talk to you about the Lloyds. And to get you some medical help. But... saying my parents died?... that's not bullshit."

"Anyone can say that!"

"But the devil's in the details, isn't it? Like, how the simple act of burning soup can remind you of your dad's terrible minestrone with almost raw pasta, or how seeing a pair of kids too timid to hold hands on a veranda makes you think of the effort your aunt went through to terrorise all your girlfriends."

"Didn't have any," Jason yelled.

"Well I _did_. And if you don't come out, I'm going to list them. And when I'm done, we can start on Jan's partners, and that could take quite some time!"

At Nick's sudden devilish grin, Jan returned a weak smile. How many did Nick think there had been, for God's sake? He looked at his watch ― 1pm ― and set a negotiation time. If Nick hadn't driven Jason screaming from his cave by two, he was going to kick the door down. They did have his health to think of, after all, whether the kid realised that or not.

There was silence from the bunker so Nick went to the bag on the back of the quad bike and grabbed a Pepsi and a banana. The sun crashed through the canopy of whispering birch above them, drying the Portland drizzle out of the ground. Jan had never considered enforced boredom as a siege-ending technique. He chuckled inwardly at Nick's creativity.

"In the beginning," Nick announced, "there was the word. And the word was 'Dula'. Dula was gorgeous, tiny, and permanently ill. She had Crohn's disease, as it turned out ― a tomato could immobilise her for days. Anyway, she was insanely, insanely bouncy. We lasted about four months."

Jan laughed before he could suppress it. "She was too bouncy? For you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Two ping pong balls on a table makes for a complicated game, Nick."

Nick shot him an indignant look over his Pepsi. "For the record, I have never been a ping pong ball. Anyway, Dula's still one of my best buddies and I'm godfather to her infuriating 8-year-old Marie, so that's all cool. But then there was Hallie, who was a complete nightmare..."

Jan set his mobile alarm for door-kicking time, stretched out on his back on a long hornbeam log, and laced his fingers behind his head. He'd gone through phases of insane metabolic changes before, mainly during growth spurts, but they'd never knocked him so far off his mental game as he'd been in the last couple of days. But he was calm again, now. His body seemed to have settled into a new metabolic rhythm since his massive uptake in unanticipated exercise. He could think. And formulate some tactics to deal with the whole new reality that had started slamming into place since meeting the Grimm in the lift. The sun's heat was soothing on his face and rock-solid sinuses, and he willed his cold away while hoping that the solar burn didn't have its usual effects of sending him off to sleep.

Unlikely, though, because he had a lot to process.

The Grimm upset him way more than he thought she could've done, sneering at the control it took to separate himself from the rest of his kind, while managing to make him feel like a King-sized wimp at the same time. It started as low-key anger as he drove home from his fruitless attempt to coax Jason out of the bunker yesterday, then rose to a fury that not even two split punch bags and a fully-woged run in the woods could settle.

He'd barely calmed down by the time Wu called with his cat emergency. For a little while, he'd cajoled the pscyho-feline through the balcony window, but as soon as John went to the can, he'd quite firmly pulled rank, sliding open the balcony door, storming to the apartment door, and directing it outwards into the corridor with an irritable growl. The tom sensed that he was in no mood for arguments and slunk off towards whichever apartment on the upper floor it usually belonged to, when not dropping down on neighbours' balconies in a fit of sexually-rejected rage.

Axel's innocent 'have you considered your partner might be a Grimm...' hadn't really helped. Of _course_ he'd noted the mounting evidence of Nick's Grimm tendencies. He'd have to have his head shoved six feet down an ostrich hole _not_ to. But until the appearance of the Grimm at the hospital, they had just been... tendencies. He'd thought, or hoped, that Nick was some kind of genetic mis-fire: the result of a distant relative marrying a Grimm, and passing down heavily diluted genes. Both his parents had died, he was well into his twenties, and yet he showed no signs of having the critical ingredient that made a 'true' Grimm, like the one in the lift.

What made a bona-fide Grimm, as far as Jan was concerned, was that single glance into the silver-frosted gaze and the instant burning passage into the all the worst parts of himself. It wasn't just that one look into her eyes horrified him with what he _should _be if he followed his biological instincts: that glance was also a mirror to what he really _was_: a Koninglowen, without the fire to match the breed. Jan was more than aware of his lack of biological aggression. It wasn't as if his family didn't comment on it (routinely!) and he spent a lot of time reminding himself that his much, much higher 'bite point' was a good thing ― particularly when he had the likes of Jack Halston trying his patience. But a large part of him still felt ... physically lacking in some way. He managed to keep the empty feeling in a sealed mental box most of the time, but Grimm had ripped the lid right off that box and pulled all his Koninglowen blood lust and all his self-doubt to the surface in one go.

Nick's monologue broke into his thoughts. "… So we were at the edge of the pier, Hallie let her waist-length hair out of its bun, and the wind picked up. Just as I was trying to fight my way out of her hair, she nudged me into the water. And then accused me of embarrassing her by being wet in public. Relationship _over_…."

Jan chuckled in spite of himself, picturing Nick slopping home, steaming mad, with pond water in his sneakers. Poor kid. Still, it sounded like he'd survived six months of Hallie before 'the hair of '95.' So patient… unlike _certain_ people…

Jan squinted up through the canopy leaves, the height of the trees making him feel small.

He'd spent most of yesterday walking around feeling naked, like everyone could see his involuntary mental fantasy on repeat: him, throwing Halston through Wilson's office window. Jan wondered if that's how Nick felt a couple of nights back, when he went on the run, as if he'd had his bouncy, protective outer covering stripped away, leaving the naked, guilty secret that he wanted a life outside 'responsibilities', whether those were as a cop or a should-be Grimm.

Last night on John Wu's front room floor gave him time to think. It wasn't the softest of surfaces to sleep on. There was very little question in his mind now that Nick was at least related to the Grimm, and that she may even the fearsome, nomadic librarian Marie he spoke about from time to time. At least, she was the only family member Nick ever mentioned, apart from Uncle George of the badly-built toboggans. And quite honestly, what were the chances of a very-Grimm visiting someone _else_ in hospital, when a not-very-Grim had been installed with a bad head injury that night? He hadn't smelt her in Nick's room, but that meant nothing: in the state he'd been in by the time he'd dropped Larry off, let alone fallen into the Grimm-infested lift, he wouldn't even have smelt crap-coated Wolfsbane in Nick's room.

"...Ava was a little scary," Nick chuckled nervously. "Semi-alcoholic, impulsive, aggressive, just did what her buddies told her to do without really questioning it, ever..."

Skalengekke, Jan thought absently. Then it occurred to him… whether the Grimm visitor was Aunt Marie or not... how the HELL had she known Nick was in hospital? Nick was out cold for hours. Jan hadn't called her. Wu hadn't. Wilson would've mentioned it if she had: however worried she may be about Wilkes, she was absolutely rigid on welfare issues.

"...Ellie was like Ava on steroids. Not only did she not make any of her own decisions, ever, but she followed me absolutely everywhere, from dawn till dusk. And if I said I wasn't free, she actually bleated at me. A little off-putting..."

Was there some kind of psychic Grimm signal sent out when one of them got hurt? _Come terrorise my wesen for me, for I'm out of commission. _Ok, that was pretty ridiculous, but then Grimm legends always seemed totally improbable anyway: nearly-Grimms only got powers when a fully-Grimm relative died? How did that work, exactly? What if Aunt Marie were to be dunked forcibly into an ice lake by an irritable Koninglowen (just for example), and spend three or four hours clinically dead? Would Nick have a terrible afternoon seeing furry/scaly people, then revert to normal? And how did they find out that they were Grimms in the first place? Was it sudden?

He had the sudden, alarming mental image of a wounded Nick staggering into a gay gym for help while on a case and finding himself suddenly surrounded by ogres, all fighting over who got to rescue him first. Siegbarstes weren't the ideal introduction into the world of wesen, however open-minded Nick was. Though, from Nick's description of Laurie as a teenager, it seemed he'd already encountered the 'possessive reflex': Laurie had protected him from bullies, and therefore Nick was 'his'. Ogres had such a bad reputation as a species, Jan thought wistfully. Of course, there were some who still acted like the missing link to their Viking Berserker forefathers: all wrath and grudges, wench-evading and undeodorised, but most of them were just vigorously protective.

"... and then there was Shae," Nick said wistfully. "That was nearly three years, and I really, _really_ thought she was going to be the love of my life because she was so funny, and smart, and caring and… even Aunt Marie really liked her."

This woke Jan up a moment. "Your Aunt liked Shae?"

"Oh, yeah. Marie was always telling me it could never last ― she was cheerful like that ― but in principle, she loved Shae."

"Always nice to have someone's blessing," Jan muttered. And checked his watch. Quarter to two.

He had no control over what was going to happen to Nick, so the only thing to do was to chill a little more, for now, and save his big heart attack for that awful day in the future when ― if ― Nick adopted a few extra family skills. In the grand scheme of things, he decided to take half Axel's advice. Distract Nick from any of his slips, and adopt deflection and evasion tactics in the face of alarming observations. Lying? No. Nick may become a proper Grimm one day, or he may not. But whereas Nick would understand him hiding his Koninglowen, if it came to that, he may struggle with long-term deception just at a time that he would be trying to work out who he could trust and who he couldn't.

"Were you close to your aunt?" Jason suddenly asked from behind the door.

Jan stilled on his log as Nick pondered this.

"We got there. But it was a really difficult start. She was aloof, busy. She had a weirdly aggressive sense of 'duty', for a librarian. It was like 'finish your homework, then you can suffer from the plague, or go see your unsuitable girlfriend.'"

Jan growled, readily able to picture this.

Nick called over. "Jan? Was that a snore?"

Oops. Too loud. Jan sat. "Not yet. I'll start snoring when you move onto Juliette."

"Another girlfriend!?"

"Oh, this is far worse. He's not even going out with Juliette, yet." He caught the banana skin Nick flung at him and wandered over to sit closer to the bunker. At least the kid was actively talking now.

"Jason? Ready to talk?" Nick called, but there was no reply apart from shuffling of feet. "Right, Jan. Your turn."

Jan cleared his throat and began to recite. "Alright. So first, there was Artem. Really nice guy and my parents did actually approve, but I was 6-5 by then, and he was only 5-6, so it was a physically uncomfortable relationship all round. Hansen was better…"

**X x X**

Sean knew that the Winterschlaaf preparation worked because it was the only thing that brought Rouse any peace when his elderly butler fell dangerously sick with pneumonia, ranting and raving with fever. In one lucid moment, Rouse begged him not to let him die with indignity. So Sean hadn't let him.

Approaching Wilkes room, Sean found it empty and darted back to the nurse's desk. "Has Captain Wilkes been moved back to intensive care?"

A tiny, kindly lady looked up at him. She'd been here when he'd dropped books off before. "I'm afraid so. About a half hour ago. Come on, I'll take you. You're one of his colleagues, right?"

Sean nodded and followed her down two flights of stairs and down an ice-white corridor to Intensive Care. They stopped outside the third door on the left and he genuinely struggled to keep the shock out of his face. Wilkes was intubated, under an electric chiller blanket, and in the grip of a delirium. The ECG slammed out a fitful rhythm and the temp dial read 105.1. There wasn't much more the guy could take. He had to get in there with the vial. "Can I go in?"

"Please do. He's very stressed." The nurse lowered her voice and looked at him steadily. "If his temp hasn't come down in the next half hour, we need to start calling next of kin."

"I'll do that, if it comes to it."

"I'll be back in a while."

He could feel the heat raging off Wilkes as he approached, so hot that he was now dry, burning off sweat faster than the IV could provide saline: still panting and wheezing hoarsely, even with the tube feeding him direct air. As the nurse retreated, Sean pulled the vial from his jacket pocket, drew out the 30ml with the feeder syringe that Calvert had given him, and shakily fed it into the cannula in the back of Wilkes' hand, hoping it would kick in quickly and give him some relief. No way was his boss dying like this: a sick man in bed. As a Captain, maybe, or as an old man, but not like this.

Wilkes jerked slightly and his eyes snapped open, glazed, bloodshot and desperate. Sean felt a grip in his hand and returned it.

"You're going to be fine." As Wilkes eyes remained wide, unfocussed, panicked, Sean realised he was saying the wrong thing. "_Helen_ is fine. She's not in danger. You're sick and hallucinating."

It seemed to sink in: both the tincture, and his reassurance. Wilkes' eyes dropped shut again and he sunk back on the bed, the grip in his fingers weakening to drop point. Sean put his hand and arm back under the chiller blanket and dropped into the chair beside the bed, waiting for the preparation to start working and bring the poor guy some peace so his body could start recovery, as it had with Rouse. It was distilled, clarified burdock, mixed with sedative and anti-biotic properties, usually used to put cooler-blooded wesen such as Siegbarstes and Lausenschlange into hibernation. It was the best natural anti-pyrexic Freddie Calvert had to offer. And a decent painkiller, too.

Sean dropped into the seat next to the bed, sweating a little. He had to get people to do this kind of stuff for him. What if he'd been caught? However good his intentions, the sight of one Captain tampering with one of his colleagues' IVs... he gripped his head, wondering what the hell his brain had been playing at.

He decided to stay with Wilkes a little while. Not so much a case of sentimentality, but thanks. Thanks for defending his investment, first: even when seriously ill, he'd sent out Wu to find Nick. And... ok, a small degree of sentimentality.

He'd worked hard to get where he was, but it wasn't without a good deal of silent support from Wilkes. While he'd learnt just about everything there was to learn about being a cop from Wilson, it was Wilkes who'd supported his application for Lieutenant after only a couple of years behind the desk. An unprecedented promotion in this county, a brave managerial move, and hugely resented by those who thought that money was being passed around at the promotion boards. His colleagues had blocked him constantly: blocked him or blanked him to the point that he was wogeing almost daily with frustration.

It took one good bust and a friendly tournament on the firing range, which he won, for Wilkes to discreetly and permanently encourage a nickname change from Rich Boy Renard to Deadshot Renard, and then he wasn't being snubbed, but happily followed.

Wilkes groaned and the monitor pipped discreetly. Sean looked over and the temp reading said 104.9. Thank God. He waited another fifteen minutes: the reading sunk to 104.7. Thoroughly relieved not to have to be the one to make the last-rites call to Helen Wilson, he got up, told the nurse at the desk that the chiller blanket was doing the job, and that Captain Wilson should be in within the next couple of hours. Then he went back to work.

He should call old Rouse later. See how his greenhouse was doing.

**X x X**

"...Wim _said_ he was adventurous, but really, handcuff him face down, and he went into a panic," Jan admitted conversationally. "So he was upright all the way. Sadly, it all ended over a badly-placed brick―"

"STOP!" Jason bellowed from inside the bunker. "For God's sake, just stop with the stories!"

While the kid may be filling the hills with the sounds of homophobia, Nick had a degree of sympathy. He had no issues at all with Jan being male-inclined, as it turned out, but the level of detail was beginning to make his legs cross and his eyes water.

There was rustling, then clattering from inside the bunker, then suddenly Jason erupted from the door and lunged off towards the nearest bush. Nick was about to give chase when Jan put his hand on his shoulder.

"He's just taking an emergency whizz."

"DON'T LET THAT FREAK NEAR ME!"

"You can pee in peace! I may be a freak, but I still have my standards!" Jan called back evenly. Then dropped his voice low. "If he runs again, I'll go after him, you bring the quad bike."

Nick nodded. While Jason was otherwise occupied, he wanted to get down to the really important stuff. "So. You're gay?"

"No."

Nick stared at Jan as he rested languidly against their log, sunning himself. "Ok, I'm a little confused. Because not many girls were mentioned, there. There was Artem, Hansen, then the guy who liked his... mangoes―"

"Pieter."

"Mango Pieter, wall-loving Wim..."

"Oh, them. Yeah."

Nick spluttered. "What d'you mean 'oh them'? Was there some female section of your history that I slept through?"

"On the contrary, you appeared to have been listening very keenly. They just weren't _my_ partners. My girlfriend history is a bit short and uninspiring, so, since we're going for length, I thought I'd borrow Frans' sexual history. He got chatty when he was drunk so I know it off by heart, alas."

"Right..." said Nick faintly. So... straight, then. Though he couldn't help thinking that it was pretty significant that someone who looked like Jan would have a short and uninspiring girlfriend history. And come to think of it, no matter how much attention Jan got when they went out drinking together, he never went home with anyone... "When we go for beers, you're always giving girls the brush-off."

"That's because they try sliding onto my lap while we're trying to have a conversation. That's just rude. I'm a cop, not a climbing frame."

Nick chuckled and turned his attention back to Jason's shrub. "It's gone quiet over there. Has he...?"

"Run? No. He's still fighting painfully with his zipper."

Eugh. "Thank you for telling me. Your hearing is just _insane_."

"So's your memory."

Nick grinned and tapped his temple. "Eidetic memory. I see something once and it makes itself at home up here. I was always being press-ganged into being the prompt for the school play because I could whisper lines at people without rustling any pages."

"You were never the leading man?"

"Uh uh. You have to be in the same school a _long_ time to be popular enough to be considered for leading man." And his two years in Vermont with Dula and Laurie was the longest time he and Marie had stayed anywhere, until he moved out when he was 18.

Jason emerged from the shrub and stomped towards them, looking haggard and resigned. He gave Jan a wide berth, Nick noted, as the kid dumped himself down on an opposite log.

"How did you find me?"

"Jan has friends," Nick said. "They come in handy, sometimes. One of the benefits of not living like a wild cat."

Jason seemed to find this observation either astonishing, or insulting, or both. He stared at him, then rather desperately at Jan, who simply shrugged.

"As I warned you yesterday, Nick doesn't miss much."

"Well, you _do_ live like a wild cat," Nick went on. "Living out in the open, sneaking home for food or better shelter, barely existing on a fluid and protein-only diet... come on. Your parents were really that bad?"

"Yes! And they weren't my parents," Jason growled.

"Foster parents are still parents. They're just not your mom and dad. I'm not going to expand the term for you every time. What did you call them?"

"Natalie and Charlie."

"Fine, so I'll call them that." Nick reached into the bag and pulled out a satsuma, peeling it. He handed a section of it over to Jason. "Charlie is in major trouble."

"Yeah. So the big guy told me."

"The big guy's name is Jan. Look, Jason. Charlie's facing 25 years inside, right now. Evidence of accidental manslaughter is building, but without your help... he's going down."

"You know it was an accident? How?"

"He let it slip," Jan said quietly.

"Idiot!" Jason kicked at the ground with his heel, sending dried bark scattering everywhere. "he could never hold it together under pressure!"

Nick kept his temper at the guy's self-centered attitude towards all this. "He was ready to take all the blame, _and the sentence_, simply by not cooperating. He did try protecting you, but Jan got to the truth."

"What did you do to him?"

"Turned him into dog food," Jan muttered. And at Jason's sharp intake of breath, rolled his eyes. "I talked to him, you fool. Like I tried talking to you yesterday. He tried very hard not to draw you into things."

"Jan's hard to lie to. He gets under people's skins."

"Understatement," Jason muttered. And eventually ate that little bit of satsuma. And pulled a face. "What the hell is this?"

"Baby orange. Something you're going to have to eat more of to stay well. Have another bit and tell me what happened."

"Even if he's cleared, I can't stay with him. We're too different."

"We're not asking you to return to his custody. Come on Jason, help me out here."

Jason sighed. "They were arguing over a text. Charlie rushed home from the choral society because he thought something was wrong. He'd sent Natalie a message saying 'everything ok?', because they hadn't communicated all day. She sent one back saying 'we'll talk when you get home.'"

Jan pulled a face. "That's terse."

"Are you aware of anything significant she wanted to say?"

"She was on the phone so she couldn't text just then. That's all she probably meant. But Natalie was so... cold... that she sounded pissed even when she wasn't. If she was mad at me, she'd use like, half her usual number of words. I'm not surprised Charlie thought he was in the shit for something."

Nick huffed a sigh. He knew that pattern of behaviour very well. "Passive-aggressive mentality."

"Huh?"

"He's talking about the way Natalie behaved," Jan chimed in. "Punishment with silences or abrupt answers, lack of reassurances, agreeing to do stuff while looking quietly furious. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah! Yeah, God. She did _all_ that shit. And the night they had that row... you know, if she'd just replied to Charlie 'I'm fine, on phone right now, can't really talk', he'd have happily stayed at his singing night, and... none of this would've happened."

Maybe, maybe not. Nick felt that it sounded like a pressure cooker situation. He really felt for the kid, now. Living in a place with that much tension, constantly... well. Nervous breakdowns had been suffered over less. And he had a good degree of sympathy of the importance of the 'extra words'. It took him a long time to get used to Aunt Marie because of her lack of initial warmth. He knew now, of course, that in the middle of her own grief, she just had no idea what to do with a young boy and found it easier to say very little in case what she did say made him cry. And she really, really didn't know what to do if he cried. But he was used to rib-crushing hugs from his dad when life didn't go to plan, so Marie's arms-length head-ruffling and near-silence threw him.

Nick handed Jason the rest of the satsuma, which he ate almost absently. Then held his hand out for another. Good - progress.

Jan spoke up quietly. "How did you know what their texts said?"

"She showed me. She had one of those big screens where you can see little messages in a conversation. I'd come up from the basement for some juice as she hung up the phone. She did one of her really heavy sighs which was meant to make me ask what was up. So I did. Then she did one of her thin smiles and showed me the reply from Charlie. He was like 'what's wrong? I'm coming back right now!' I asked her if she'd replied to say she was fine, and that he could stay out, and... and.. "

Nick moved over next to Jason as he broke off and wiped his face with the back of his hand, sobbing. He put a light hand on the back of the kid's shoulders. "It's alright. Take your time."

"She said," Jason choked out, "'_If he wants to go into a flap just because I don't drop everything to answer his texts straightaway, that's up to him_.' And I just snapped. I screamed and screamed at her and told her she was evil, that I wished I'd never moved in with them... all that stuff. I don't regret saying ANY of it. But Charlie got home and he thought I was going to rip her to pieces, I was so mad. I was smashing furniture in case I lashed out at her by accident, and he grabbed me. I think he could see that something just pushed me over the edge, and without getting her side of the story, he just asked her why she had to be such a bitch."

"And they went for each other?" Nick asked.

Jason nodded frantically. "Yeah, claws out – so to speak. I was kind of clumsy getting between them and smacked her in the face. She fell backwards and..."

"Hit her head. Got you." Nick met Jan's eyes and nodded off left. "Alright, just take a rest."

Jan left Jason with a tissue and a bottle of water, and joined him to one side. "All true. An accident following an altercation taking place under extreme provocation. We've still got to deal with the perversion of justice charge for them both, but we can pursue that through family court."

Nick nodded. "Community service and residence at a halfway house? Could work better for both of them. Oh…. he'll need a job to qualify for the halfway house, and it doesn't look like he's been in school for years..."

"That's alright. I've got a friend―"

"How did I know you were going to say that?" Nick chuckled. "Ok, what does he do?"

"He's the butcher at Henri's Charcuterie. He's had some... similar life experiences. I have a feeling that they'll bond."

They wandered back over to Jason, helping him up from his log and onto the back of the quad bike. The kid was very, very tired.

"What's going to happen to Charlie?"

"I don't know," Nick admitted. "Our Captain will talk to the DA. They get on well."

"Good."

"You seem reasonably fond of him."

"Not really," Jason muttered. "He's highly strung and touchy."

"Constant strain does that to you," Jan countered gently. "And for what it's worth, he cares hugely about you. He just didn't know what to do when you wouldn't speak to them."

"Did he leave out the part where they didn't really speak to me, either? When in Rome, and all that..."

"Yeah," Nick conceded, strapping the bag on the back of the quad bike. "Terseness is catching. I can vouch for that. It took my school buddies to mock my Aunt's 'brevity' habits out of me."

"How did you turn out so normal?"

Nick wasn't sure he had an answer. He'd had to adjust to a new way of life, so he did. Running away and living in the woods hadn't really... struck him as an option. "I guess I created a 'new' normal, and so did my Aunt. If you can't get something back, you have to build something else. Right... it's a short trek through the woods, then we're getting you to hospital."

"Why?"

"You have scurvy."

"Huh? The smelly sailor disease?"

Nick grinned. "Uh… yeah."

"I thought I just felt like shit."

"That'd be the scurvy. Right… hold on―" Nick leapt on and gunned the engine, then heard panicking from behind him. "What?"

"Uh... look... I heard you guys arriving. There was yelling and throwing up and stuff. Could I walk?"

Nick glared back at Jason as Jan grinned and broke into a run ahead of them. "Jason, I will drive like you're a box of eggs. Now shut up and hold on, you big girl."

**X x X**

Nick rode in with Jason to Portland Gen and waited for Cleo to show up so Jason wouldn't be alone. His prognosis was good on both medical and legal counts: one overnight stay needed for re-hydration and vitamin boosts, a dental referral, and support for both Jason and Charlie in setting out the grounds of excess provocation in the event of Natalie Lloyd's death.

Nick even managed to get away from Cleo with minimal damage done to his personal time: he could probably handle a Saturday afternoon doing face-painting at an orphanage's opening fete. Nevertheless, he walked away from the hospital with that slight feeling of having been hypnotised by a very pretty cobra. Again. If anything, Cleo was even more potent in person than on the phone.

He got a cab back to Gresham as Jan had already gone ahead to make legal arrangements for Jason, and as he got back in the building, winced to see DeMarcos covering at Wilson's desk instead of his beloved Captain. Jan looked up with a smile as he approached.

"How is Jason?"

"I think he's going to be ok," Nick mused. "Maybe a little space from each other will help Jason and Charlie build something different."

"I hope so." Jan stood and stretched. "Right… I'm taking a shower, then I believe I owe you a beer."

"I won't say no," Nick grinned and picked up a call from Abi as Jan strode off to the locker rooms. Two minutes later, he hung up with a movie double-date on Saturday night and a conspiracy between him and Abi to turn up with a really cool vehicle, just to irritate Dale, who was on his last chance. Not that he knew this. Nick rubbed his hands gleefully, having a pretty good idea where he could get a really cool vehicle from.

The squad room was empty, so he spent a few minutes online while he waited for Jan, checking personal mail. Nothing exciting. Nothing broke the tedium of waiting for Jan to hurry up in the damn shower except the sight of a female uniformed officer sneaking into the ladies' washroom with a huge pair of shoes and a deli bag and sneaking out again a few moments later, running back up the stairs. Eventually, Nick stomped into the locker room to see if Jan had actually managed to drown himself this time.

He'd at least got as far as putting on boxers and towel-drying his hair.

Nick tapped his wrist vigorously. "Drinking time is being lost!"

"Sorry, Nick. I'll be with you in five."

"I'll multiply that up a couple of times," Nick muttered and headed back to his desk to play solitaire. At least Jan had limited clothes to choose from in his locker. As he'd found while staying with his partner while his flat was flooded, a Jan faced with a choice of shirts was a Jan that was difficult to get out of the door in the morning. The game of solitaire lasted two minutes before it made him feel lonely. So he picked up a copy of the Portland Post and flicked to the 'real experiences' pages, which got weirder by the week. _'A life-sized otter stole my car,' _today's title proclaimed. Nick rolled up the paper: it was too silly to read. Perhaps he could go beat Jan out of the locker room with it. His partner may be non-violent, but Nick wasn't above some focussed whacking if it hurried up beer time a little.

He barely got halfway down the corridor, weapon in hand, when Halston stormed towards him, barefoot and carrying his shoes. His hair was wet and he wore denims, a white wife-beater and red blotches on his face and neck. "Where's Vergeer?"

Before Nick could say anything, cheerful Dutch singing had the incandescent narc guy barging past him and steaming towards the locker room. He dropped the paper and followed at a run, sensing that a cold war was about to end in a very physical way unless Jan managed to talk some sense into him. His partner had progressed to socks, shoes and denims and was unconcernedly tugging a teeshirt from his locker as Halston stamped over and glared up at him like he wanted to kill.

"Evening, Jack."

"You..." whispered Halston throatily, his face vibrating with wrath, "put mayonnaise... in my shoes!"

"Wh-What?" Jan gave a short, disbelieving laugh, tucked the teeshirt back, and put his hands on his hips.

"THERE'S MAYONNAISE IN MY FUCKING SHOES!" Halston jerked his loafers up to inspection height, showing the jellied gunk spread all over the soles. Nick could even see the knit pattern where a sock had imprinted before the prank was discovered.

Jan frowned. "So there is. Regrettable, but... nothing to do with me."

"Bullcrap! This kind of stunt is right up your street!" Halston flung the shoes away, and pointed a stabby finger right up in Jan's face.

Jan caught Halston's wrist, pulled it down then released it, his face darkening. "Grow up, Jack."

"The mad thing is that you can get away with this shit just 'cause you're in bed with Wilson―"

"I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOUR SHIT!" Jan's explosion of wrath was as sudden and shocking as the sound of his locker door crashing as he slammed it shut, denting the whole thing inwards. Nick stared at the damage, then at Jan's face. Oh… crap..

"My shit?" Halston bounced on the balls of his feet a little. "I haven't even started."

Jan rammed advanced on Halston, arms spread wide, giving a two handed beckon. "You want to take a swing? Come and take a swing. Let's get this over with."

"Whooo... ah… " Nick started forward, not wanting to see his buddy screw his career over some asshole. Jan had a predatory gleam in his eyes that looked completely alien on his good-natured face. "Jan, he's not worth it."

Halston had been looking at the locker as if having second thoughts about taking this to fist-stage, but pride took over and he lunged. Jan stepped back and swept him past with a neat forearm deflection, flicking him into the lockers. Halston landed hard but recovered well, lashing out at Jan's ankles with his legs, trying to scissor him over. Jan was too agile and kept out of range. Suddenly behind Jan instead of alongside, Nick saw a pale splash of scar on the left side of his waist. A bullet-hole, and it didn't look old.

Jan was fighting Queensbury rules: letting Halston get up, and Halston took the opportunity to dive forward and get Jan's legs in a tackle, using his lower point of gravity to tip him backwards onto the floor. Scrabbling on top, he started trying to beat downwards and perhaps landed a couple of feeble blows, but the Jan had the arm-length advantage: he pushed his nemesis upwards, first lifting him out of punching range, then throwing him off altogether. With his dignity dying a slow death, Halston went apoplectic, scrabbled to his feet just as Jan was also getting up, and flicked him a kick in the windpipe that crashed him back down on knees, holding his throat. He raised his foot to kick again, presumably in the same place, and Nick interrupted unfair play. It was no longer about 'whose' fight it was ― it had to stop.

Nick rushed him and rammed him to the floor before the kick could damage. As they rolled, Halston wound up on top, his eyes completely crazed as he started trying to pummel. Nick blocked the first punch with good reflexes and a hard grip on Halston's wrist, but the second blow caught him on the corner of the eyebrow on his wounded side, making him yell. He punched out angrily, landing a solid smack to Halston's cheekbone that stunned him for perhaps a few seconds, but not long enough to push him off. Halston dropped down, putting the full weight of his upper body on his neck. Choking, Nick brought his legs up to push the guy off, but he was on a different planet, now. He kicked up hard as his vision clouded over, but made contact with nothing…

…because Jan sprung over, snatched Halston off him and slammed him face down on the ground, pinning him by his wrists.

"Do not _ever_ hit my partner," Jan rasped. "What the hell's the matter with you? You've gone completely psychotic!"

"You screwed over Simon!"

"That's nothing to do with Nick!" Jan roared, voice back.

Nick sat up slowly, massaging his throat, feeling slightly compensated as Jan reacted to Halston's escape attempt by slamming him back on the floor and driving the air out of his lungs. Then he saw DeMarcos in the doorway of the locker room. Uh oh.

"Let him up, Vergeer."

Nick watched Jan release his grip and drop backwards, leaning against the lockers. His jaw was still clamped, eyes narrowed.

DeMarcos jerked his head out of the locker rooms as Halston staggered to his feet, touching his bloodied lip. "Halston, the office. Now."

"What? You saw him holding me down!" Halston glared hate in Jan's direction, and this time Nick had to dart forward and push Jan back against the lockers to keep him from getting himself into the same shit as Halston.

"You're lucky he didn't chuck you the length of the locker room! You were out of control!" Nick spluttered, and thought for a moment that DeMarcos was going to scream at him for butting in, but the guy just stared at him flatly.

"Don't need any help thanks, Burkhardt. Halston. My office."

"It's fuckin' unbelievable!..He gets away with everything!"

"Oh, you want to do this here?" DeMarcos barked, "Really? Cause you're yelling at all the wrong people. It was ME that wanted to fire Simon Colman. He got Vergeer shot trying to cover him out of his first little solo raid. Wilson damn near took one in the head rescuing him in the second, and the only reason _she_ got there in time was because Vergeer called her as soon as Colman stormed out of the hospital."

"He's in a wheelchair because he ran in on armed guys running crack across the whole county! We got it all back! Did that count for nothing?"

"Yes! That's why he got medically retired instead of kicked out!" DeMarcos tugged a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Look… Simon was a liability, a shitty detective and should've been out on his ass after his first escapade."

Halston looked completely lost. "Why would you fire him? Simon was basically a good kid..."

"I'm sorry this happened to your Godson. I really am. But there's no room for screw-ups who won't learn, no matter how 'basically good' they are."

"He was loyal. He went back in to get those guys for shooting his partner."

DeMarcos sighed. "No, Jack, he went back there because he wanted to be YOU. You're off the rails right now, but you were a good cop. And you should know a bad one when you see one. Now… the office. We got to talk about what to do with you."

Halston followed, wiping his bloody lip with his sleeve, looking like his world had ended. At the doorway, he glanced back numbly. "Burkhardt... sorry."

Nick glared as Halston disappeared off round the corner. Both Nick and Jan exhaled slowly, letting the adrenaline go.

"Wow... angry," Nick managed eventually.

"What… him, or me?"

"Both," Nick admitted. "Remind me never to try to suppress you from a fight again. It's kind of a lost cause."

"Sorry, Nick." Jan straightened up and pulled his dead locker door open. "Simon's living with him, so he's seeing the consequences of what happens every day and he has no way of getting away from it. Either he's at work, or he's looking after Simon. Simon's bitter, of course. So Halston's absorbed a lot of tension. A bit like Jason, really."

"You're being a little more understanding than me," Nick muttered, feeling his throat. "Damn near choked me. Psycho."

"Not completely understanding. Everyone has their limits."

"Is ... what happened... why you're so against rookies in SVU?"

Jan tugged his teeshirt on. "Partly. Ok, largely. But I still think the nature of the cases we take isn't the best starting point for any detective who doesn't want to burn out in a few years."

"Did you get badly hurt? When you got shot?"

"I didn't hit anything vital." Jan almost absently punched the locker dent back out again and the metallic crack echoed round the locker room.

Nick stared. If he tried that, he'd be looking at a hand in a plastercast for six weeks. "You alright?"

"I'm getting there. Part of me thinks I'd feel better if I'd actually punched him."

Nick thought of the totally broken expression on Halston's face as he followed DeMarcos to Wilson's office. He didn't feel any kind of victory at all about taking a swing at the guy, even if it was in self-defence. "No... I think you had the right idea with the whole defensive fighting thing."

"I'm glad to hear I didn't lose out."

Nick felt that a little sympathy was in order. "Mind you, you'd probably feel better if he hadn't kicked you in the throat."

"Nick… the total denial method of pain management _was_ working quite well." Jan rolled his eyes, but smiled reluctantly. "Alright, less drama, more beer."

"Right back!" Nick bounced off to his desk to get his own bag and returned as Jan was getting his shoes on. "I know he was just itching for a fight with any excuse, but the shoe-mayo stunt was so clearly not your style."

"I'm glad you think so."

"Too basic. Nope. You'd have sent hula dancers into the squad room to distract him while ten small children wrote 'redneck' on his car in ketchup."

Jan laughed properly at last. "It's slightly troubling how quickly you came up with that idea."

"Pranking was my own passive-aggressive form of communication when I was 12. My aunt once went nuts at me for taking this really cool crossbow to school for technical class. It was just stuck on the bottom row of the shed, so I didn't look at it and think 'rare', you know? Anyway after she'd yelled at me in front of half the guys in my year, I did my sweet choir-boy act, apologised after dinner, and put mustard in her custard for dessert."

"Not much laughter followed, I imagine?"

"Not from her. More grounding than laughing. She took... what's that phrase you always use? She took 'a dim view'."

"You shock me." Jan chuckled on his way out, and with the mood lightened, Nick thought it was safe to ask a favour concerning a certain nifty vehicle he wanted to borrow.

"Uh... Jan? What are you doing Saturday night?"

"Babysitting for Axel's grandson. Why?"

"Ok, well... are you staying home to babysit, or...?"

"Yee-es... Why?"

"You know I'm insured on the Spyder?"

"No!"

"I'm going to the theatre on Saturday with Abi, Juliette and... 'him', and I just sort of... wanted to upset Dale a bit."

Jan strode off down the corridor. "No, Nick!"

"Not in a confrontational way, y'know." Nicked jogged to keep up. "I could sense him silently mocking my Ford, so I'd love to show up with something sleeker."

Jan turned, looked at him firmly, and pushed the double doors open with his back. " With all due respects to your car, anyone who has seen it _knows_ that you don't also own a Spyder."

"No, no! You don't get it! This isn't about Dale being jealous of my ― sorry, _your_ ― cool car. This is about Juliette realising that I'm the dependable kind of guy that a buddy would trust with a Spyder."

Jan almost ran across the car park and yanked the door of the Spyder open. "She'd be horribly wrong, because I don't trust you with it!"

Nick gave his partner the wounded look that always worked on Laurie. "Why not?"

"Two words, Nick. QUAD BIKE."

"Well, of course I wouldn't drive the Spyder like that!" Nick stroked the dashboard lovingly. "I'll stick to fifty, and no bumps."

"God almighty! It's like trying to discourage a four-year-old..."

Nick struggled to keep a straight face as Jan put the car into drive and surged out of the car park. So far so good. He waited till they were on the freeway before trying again. "It's going to be a challenging evening. I'm not sure how long I'm going to last without saying something rude."

"I'd imagine somewhere between twenty seconds and half a minute, but I don't know why this suddenly worries you."

He ignored this and went in for the kill. "Abi said that Dale is intellectually opposed to cops, but isn't very smart about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, depending on what's on the news, we're either a bunch of incompetent, thoughtless, violent facists, or..."

"...or?" Jan's knuckles whitened promisingly round the steering wheel.

"Or we're a bunch of incompetent, interfering do-gooders who should really keep their beaks out of private family stuff that we don't even understand."

"Are we?" Jan said dangerously.

"Oh, just for extra charm, if we spent more time trying to solve crimes, and less time organising fundraisers, we'd get some useful work done."

Jan, cop marathon organiser extraordinaire, narrowed his eyes. "He sounds like a shit."

Nick shrugged. "Oh, I wouldn't go that far, but you'd want to punch him within minutes." He itched with impatience while Jan mulled this over.

"Still no Spyder. Sorry." Jan quirked his lips a little. "But you can take the Yamaha. The helmets are in the garage."

Nick punched the air. Mission accomplished. Of course he'd never get the Spyder. But it was nice to think that he'd come out of Jan's little tact and negotiating course having learnt _something_….

**X x X**

"SHHHHH!"

Sean followed DeMarcos silently into Wilkes' room, feeling that if he got shushed one more time, he might accidentally disturb the peace with a baseball bat. He was sure Wilkes wouldn't mind. The reason for the quiet was Wilson, sleeping on a cot in the corner of Wilkes' room, finally catching up with herself now that the major storm had come and gone. Wilkes was awake, slightly tilted up, still overwarm at 100.8, but well within safety margins. Sean smiled at his boss, displaying his happiness at his recovery with a stern, uncompromising look.

Helen stirred and they all froze, pointlessly, as none of them were making any noise anyway.

"How's she doing?" Sean murmured.

Wilkes smiled. "Better, thanks. I said that if she wasn't going to go get some rest, she was going to lie down before I put her down, so… after she stopped laughing at me, she listened. Thanks for the email, Tony. How did your showdown go with Halston?"

"There was no showdown," DeMarcos said proudly, and Sean looked down in interest. "I've given him a second written warning and sent him off on psychiatric leave. Someone's also gonna talk to him about respite care so he gets some time out from Simon. Boy, did he flip!"

"No screaming?" Wilkes asked. "No ranting?"

"He was lucky he got me in a good mood," DeMarcos admitted. "I'd just got the call that you'd been moved out of ICU. If not… yeah, some screaming and dismissing might have happened, even if he is a damn good cop when he's on his game. What he did was out of line, even if he did get mayonnaise in his shoes."

"Pardon?" Sean was almost prodded into open bewilderment. "Vergeer put… mayonnaise in his shoes?"

"No! No, it was Andersen. Payback for the fake jizz on her uniform apparently."

Livvy Andersen was one of Wilkes' protégées. Accordingly, he dropped his palm down on his face and groaned. "She's only a few weeks out of the academy! She's got a dirty rap sheet already?"

"Nah, Andersen's fine. I let her off with some light yelling. She's got balls."

"No she hasn't," Wilkes said evenly. "That's part of the problem."

"Fine, not balls. Stones. Ok, not those, either."

Sean watched with amusement as DeMarcos came up with a non-male compliment and pitched in to help. "Gall?"

"Gall! Yeah. She's got gall. Ok, so it was a dumb thing to do, and she knows it. But she had no idea that Halston would blame anyone other than her, and she was brave enough to wait for him in the carpark – alone – to apologise. She wasn't to know that I'd be driving out with him."

"Let's hope that's an end to it," Wilkes said mildly. "Thank you… for taking a lighter view on that one."

DeMarcos shrugged. "We got our own styles, but sometimes a swap is no bad thing. Keeps things fresh."

The surprise registered on Wilkes' ECG and DeMarcos clipped him lightly round the ear. "You gotta get well enough to try my approach sometime, alright?"

Sean was pleasantly surprised to see the first genuine handshake between the two that he'd ever seen.

"I take it that Vergeer lost it, too," Wilkes mused, his voice going significantly. "Takes a lot to do that."

"Eh… he should've smacked Halston five months ago. Saved himself a lot of bother. Naturally I condemn such an approach, but … at the same time… would happily have paid to see the beginning of that fight. We've got to keep an eye on Burkhardt though. He's a rare mix. Nice kid and strong cop."

"He is," Sean murmured. "And not so much a kid. I'll keep an eye out."

They filed out of Wilkes' room a few moments later so he could rest alongside Wilson. DeMarcos went home via the bar; Sean went for a drive. It was good to know that he wasn't the only one keeping an eye out for Nick. His call to Marie was fun, but he wasn't entirely truthful. Nick would be a very, very good Grimm if he followed his father's footsteps. Reed was stronger than Marie and Kelly put together because he stopped, thought, and suppressed ego where necessary while he made decisions. Nick was his own man, because he truly was his father's son.

He'd be dangerous enough if needed, Sean had no doubt of that – not after seeing his stamina. But what he needed right now was Nick remaining low-key, under a steadying influence ― like Vergeer's ― and continuing to take psychological views on people, rather than wesen-based ones. Each to his own, of course, but he couldn't help feeling that there was the tiniest bit of jealousy in Marie's attitude towards her brother in law… _he _spent his life walking around in shades, and wesen still pretty much parted before him anyway. It would be good to see the gentler approach bear fruit again, one day.

**X x X**

Monroe stretched happily and cracked his knuckles. Today was another rabbitless day. No rabbits. No squirrels. No... blood. For the 83rd day running.

Blood was out. Cello strings were in. More to the point, cello-strings were incoming within the next hour, if Fed-Ex kept their promise.

He drained the percolator vat of Honduran java into his cup and hovered by the window. After five minutes of hovering, he moved to a languid lurk. Then pretended to himself that he really was reading the Portland Post. The 'Real Experiences' piece of the day proclaimed the appearance of a drunken meerkat on an old lady's lawn. He rolled his eyes.

"Well… we've all seen one of those."

The postman came and went and Monroe flicked a wave through the window. His bladder protested at the java and he wearily headed for the can.

Mid-whizz, the doorbell rang.

"Crap, no! I'M COMING! DON'T GO!"

He cut off stream with a degree of difficulty, snatched his boxers and pants up and sprinted down to the door, seeing that inevitable black card on top of his post. "We called but you weren't in..."

Monroe snatched the door open and sprinted down the street after the black van, waving his arms like a semaphore guy having fit. "I'm here! Don't g- DON'T GO! DAMN YOU! I AM NOT DRIVING 30 MILES TO THE FRICKING COLLECTION DEPOT!"

The van zipped round the corner and he found his hair growing out from under his beard and the teeth elongating with fury as he struggled to keep up.

"I'M GONNA FIND YOU AND SHRED YOUR TYRES IN EIGHTEEN IRREPARABLE PLACES! EACH!"

Damn it! God, he was so mad he could hunt. He stormed back into his house and slammed the door shut hard enough to hear the stained panes of glass tinkle in his top window. No. No hunting. Not even for this - he'd be so disappointed with himself. He settled for snatching up the 'While you were out' card and chewing it into a sour ball.

There was a hand-written white note underneath. Temporarily distracted by curiosity, he bent and picked it up. The lettering was big, black, and neat.

* * *

Your friend Mr Hendricks has moved home and changed number, so please forgive me for using you as a switchboard. I would like to pass him a message.

Please tell Mr Hendricks that his 'pet cave' is once again his own, and is none the worse for use. I have relocated its temporary occupant. If he is still the registered owner of the 2003 Ford Sierra, it has been found and is waiting for collection at the Gresham lot. He may be pleased to know that those who stole it drove it very carefully.

Amiably,

JV, Gresham Police Department.

* * *

"Well isn't that nice?" Monroe murmured. It was one to bring up at Dave's Wieder evening - the benefits of cooperating with the cops. It restored his faith in human nature. Or wesen nature. Whatever. He called the Fed-ex depot to announce his collection time, and didn't even threaten to disembowel anyone.

This kind of thing made being the effort of being wieder feel worthwhile. He'd yelled at Larry about the non-wisdom of accepting a lift from a Koninglowen, but if a Koninglowen could work on the side of the Angels (even if they did come in the form of burger-eating Gresham cops), then maybe human-wesen integration COULD happen in his life-time.

Moved to a moment of goodness of his own, he went online and left a small donation to the Gresham PD half-marathon fundraiser for the US Care of Police Survivors charity. Larry would want to, but he was always skint. Paying it forward on his behalf felt good.

He left a message on Larry's machine, grabbed his carkeys and skipped down to his Beetle.

**X x X**

**Hope you enjoyed! With thanks to D Squirrel for reminding me that Jan would never do anything banal with mayo; to General Z for throwing me the 'Mauvais in distress' story line; to Morena for reassuring me that Jan wasn't going bonkers; and to Nahaliel for being kind enough to lend me her own original characters - Shae - as Nick's only reasonable former girlfriend, lol. (she features in 'Lost Somewhere in Between).**

**New story coming soon….**


	10. Partners can be weird

**First of all, thanks for all the lovely reviews from the last chapter, from those I've managed to PM and from guests, and those who have followed or favourite since. I really do appreciate them!**

**Now… a word about the long delay of updating…. Those who have been following the series since United Federation of Rare Species will know how this series is going to end… but I am really trying not to a) ruin the bromance that Nick and Jan have b) make it gloomy in the ending, because Jan would **_**not**_** leave unless he thought he was going on to something better.**

**But yeah, from the history in UFRS, Jan does develop feelings for Nick that he's uncomfortable with, and they are part of his reasons for moving on. But only **_**part**_** of his reasons. And… Jan's feelings for Nick are a purely one-way thing, which I have tried to handle with tact and courtesy. So, whatever your personal definition of 'slash', mine is 'contains m/m sexual relations', and that doesn't apply here, because Nick is straight in this universe, and Jan is desperately trying to respect that. Hell, we've all fallen for someone we shouldn't, haven't we?**

**So, although I've known the actual plot for a while, I've finally figured out a way to show Jan's last hurrah as Nick's partner in the final story in this particular series before he moves onto his homicide role with Hank Griffin. I hope. Please be really nice to me in reviews because this has taken a million years to pull together, lol. xxxxx**

**X x X**

Nick weaved his way through the throngs of dispirited parents waiting for their baggage to turn up on the carousel as their kids zipped around, making the most of their remaining hours of vacation. He snatched his camping backpack off the caterpillar slats and bounced towards the arrivals exit, where a thick crowd gathered on the other side of the barrier. He saw a load of guys with enormous cameras, instantly thought 'paparazzi', and wondered who they were waiting for. He still had enough vacation immaturity in him to shove his shades on, ruffle his hair, widen the V at the top of his shirt and walk out waving in the exhausted style of the mile-high celeb club, amidst an explosion of flashes.

It took the guys about 15 seconds of inspecting their collective digital films to realise that they'd papped a complete nobody, and a couple of them yelled 'funny, asshole!' at him as he made his way over to Jan, who was at the far, rear corner of the crowd, visible for miles, and pumping his arms in a mimed vigorous running motion. Wondering if he was being warned about his imminent assassination by an annoyed pap, Nick sped up and had to actually chase Jan as the big guy loped rapidly across the concourse towards the carpark.

"Sorry for the pace, Nick," Jan explained on the move, "I parked in the loading bay and there's an inspector coming, so—"

"Sprint!"

They accelerated, overtaking a couple of taxis. The inspector was just a couple of yards from Jan's car so they threw themselves in and Jan sped off before the guy could take his plates. Nick buckled up and grinned at his partner as they shot off into the night. Jan grinned back blearily, very good humoured for someone who'd been called at eleven for an emergency ticket bail-out, and even more so for someone who'd probably got up at 2am to come fetch him from the airport.

"Jan, you're a total life-saver."

"You couldn't help your cards being cloned, I suppose. I'm just glad it was a cloning rather than a mugging."

Nick was grateful that Jan didn't specifically reference the attack on him. Yeah - bruises on bruises wouldn't have been pleasant. Nick flicked a twitchy glance out of the window, not wanting to think of those last couple of days at work before his trip to Mexico. He got smacked into the ground by four guys after trying to intervene in a 'domestic' row in a shopping centre, and could barely pull himself off the sidewalk without help. And back at the precinct, as he was cleaning himself up, they found that a girl that they were trying to protect from her violent partner had turned up dead in Mount Hood. It was the only time he'd ever cried on duty — academy time included. He'd had help: Jan supported him after the attack, checked him over and took him home. Then later, he spent an hour on the phone with Hank, who'd talked him through the failed case for a few minutes, sympathetically, then took his mind off things with a list of things not to do during a divorce.

If it hadn't been for them, he'd have spent a lot of time questioning his vocation as a cop. As it happened, he only felt like hell the first day, when he actually had to travel, but after that, Laurie and Dula made the vacation awesome between the pair of them, Dula on great form with her little girl staying with Grandma for a couple of weeks. So he was able to totally unwind... until he couldn't pick up his airline tickets from self-service.

"It's fine," he muttered eventually, "I'm better now." Feeling that this reply might sound terse, he added: "I don't know what I'd have done without your bail-out. So... thanks."

Jan gave him a lop-sided smile. "I must confess, it wasn't entirely altruistic. I don't need Wilson in a blacker mood than she is already. You turning up late from vacation? Not going to go down very well. Oh, by the way, do you mind crashing at mine tonight? I've got company I don't want to leave for too long, and I really can't be bothered to go all the way across town and then all the way home again."

Nick stuck his thumbs up cheerfully. A comfy bed and huge breakfast awaited... even if he had to get up again in three hours. As the night time scenery zipped past them at the speed of legal + 10%, he cast a sideways glance at Jan.

"In a really big hurry?"

"I left someone in bed, and I'd like to get back to her."

"Oh!" Ok, that was a surprise. "And... she's ok with you leaving her to pick me up in the middle of the night? And then stay with you…while she's there?"

"You and a bunch of others who decided to pitch up at about midnight. Don't worry, she's very understanding." Jan took his foot off the gas as they came into a residential area. "But she may be gone before you get up."

Nick grinned. "A secret liaison?"

"A discreet one." Jan cleared his throat and Nick could've sworn he saw his partner blush in the strobe of the streetlights zipping by. "If she wants to show herself in the morning, fine. But if she wants to take herself away early, I hope you'll ..."

"Not ask any questions. Ok. " Nick itched with curiosity. A discreet liaison... so someone they worked with, maybe? That would HAVE to be discreet. There weren't so many female cops around. He mulled.

Livvy Andersen, maybe? Nah... he rejected that flat-out. Jan was decent: he wouldn't go for anyone he didn't plan to have a meaningful connection with. Jan was vaguely fond of Livvy, but in the way of an exasperated, much older brother. Wilson... ah... NO. Sophia Benyon of their nightshift SVU team was out of the question: she was a looker, but was vigorously passive-aggressive. Hmmmm.. maybe not a work colleague, then. Perhaps someone Jan's family disapproved of?

He might find out in the morning. So, before Jan sprinted off back to his bed companion and things potentially got complicated at breakfast time, Nick rummaged in his bag for Jan's souvenir from Mexico, fished it out of its box and the polystyrene peanuts, and produced it with a beam.

"Got you a present!"

Jan looked over, since they were at a red light, and Nick saw his eyes widen at the light-bulb-headed porclain Elvis lampshade — one of two — that he'd won during the Desperado tequila drinking contest. Jan blinked a few times in the darkness. "Ah... thanks very much. That's certainly one of Mexico's ... less typical artefacts."

"Thought you'd like it. It's pretty rare."

"Yes… I can imagine."

"I got two - yours also sings 'La Guaracha'. There's a button at the bottom. And it takes a super-bright bulb so you'll need a dark corner for it."

"That's very kind of you, Nick. I will find a very, VERY dark corner to tuck it into," Jan promised, swiped his card at the main fence of his gated residential area, and slid the car quietly up the drive.

"Why's Wilson in a black mood?"

"It's been a strange couple of weeks. DeMarcos is now Area Commandant—"

Nick dragged his hands down his face. "Oh NO!"

"Oh yes. And he'll be based at Portland until the end of the month at least, before he gets his own offices. Then Renard's taking over at Portland. So there may be another transfer shuffle."

Nick grimaced. It was hard for any of the guys to get stuck into a new set-up if they kept being moved round. Hopefully this would be it for a while. "And how has local crime coped in my absence?"

"It's been shocking, Nick. Portland has missed you. I'll tell you about it in the morning because there's a lot to cover and you'll find out for yourself shortly anyway. But for the next..." Jan consulted his watch, "…five hours you're still on leave."

Nick appreciated the consideration and shot Jan a grin as they climbed out of the Spyder and jogged up the front steps. Jan let them both in and pointed down the corridor at the rear guest room, talking quietly.

"You've got the single room at the back on the left. Sorry, it's a bit of a crowded house. I'll explain in the morning. Help yourself to a drink and snack if you want one."

**X x X**

Jan waited to ensure that Nick had his face firmly tucked into the fridge, rubbing his hands gleefully in search of a snack, then slunk back upstairs, smiling in relief. Nick looked a hell of a lot better than last time he'd seen him, limping slowly up the steps to his apartment with his head hanging and shoulders hunched.

The sight sent his protective streak into overdrive: with a little help from Franco and Wu, he made four arrests for assault over the next three days, and spent most of his free time ordering new punchbags. Even with the catharsis, the arrests hadn't been gentle. But Nick seemed to have put the incidents behind him and his little pap-tormenting stunt at the airport was a good sign that he was back to his normal self. Thank God. He needed Nick at work: the human trafficking situation he'd been watching had started affecting the local sex workers. Even the Phoebes had come running to him for help.

His cell buzzed halfway up the stairs and he gritted his teeth. If this was another snappy text from Francine, he might just run into the woods at dawn, call his sister and roar down the line at her, just to remind her which species of wesen DNA they BOTH shared. Francine was one of the few people who could make him completely lose his temper, and lately she'd really been pushing his boundaries by treating the whole process of finding him a 'suitable partner for the Vergeer name' like a corporate recruitment campaign. His family evidently felt that 34 was unacceptably old to be single and childless.

Thinking in frustration about the warm, probably lonely companion in his bed, he opened his email just to see what he'd have to deal with in the morning. If he didn't, he'd spend time thinking about it. At least if he knew, he could then turn his brain off. But the email wasn't from his sister. A beleaguered girl called Annalise had attached a lengthy email trail between herself and Francine, demonstrating her valiant but pointless attempt to evade the date night Francine was trying to enforce, even from as far away as Wassenaar.

_Jan_

_Ik ben in Portland van 5-15 Juli: kunnen we voor koffie ontmoeten? Jou zus maakt me gek! Misschien mogen we…._

Jan read through the remainder of the short mail, chuckling at Annalise's desperate request that they met for coffee if only to say that they didn't like each other, and could then move on with their lives. 'She's driving me beserk, too,' thought Jan sympathetically, and switched his cell off. He'd reply in the morning. He opened the door quietly and peeled his shirt off, but the figure in the bed sat sleepily, wiping her eyes as she snapped on the dim bedside light.

"Hey, that was quick."

"You would've frowned upon my driving."

"Only if there was a little guy in the car with you." She giggled. "Apart from Nick."

"Cheeky," he chided mildly, and pulled his tee shirt over his head. Still, given her total patience earlier with his onslaught of unexpected guests, he couldn't expect her not to tease him a little about racing to someone else's rescue. He sat on the end of the bed to pull shoes and socks off as she perched cross-legged against his pillows, but as his hands went to his belt buckle, she leapt across the quilt and on top of him, pushing him down on the mattress with her hands spread on his chest. Her palms felt a little chilled and he put his hands over hers.

"Wow. You're really warm!"

"It's a Koninglowen thing."

"Nick ok?"

"He's fine. Just planning a three-course snack before he has a nap."

She chuckled down at him, her hair falling into her face. Jan tucked it lightly back behind her ears. "I'm SO sorry about the four hundred intrusions tonight, Cleo. Next time…"

"Never mind."

Cleo lowered her lips to his as he slid his hands around her back. She was a slow-motion kisser, which he liked. She pushed upright eventually, her face flushed and eyes sparkling dark-green in the half-light. Suddenly they took on a luminescent, crystalline quality that made him feel first dreamy, then slightly drunk. He had to snap himself out of the near trance, rolling so he was on top, bracing his weight on his forearms and holding her hands down with his fingers linked between hers.

"Cleo… no hypnotism. I don't know if you've noticed, but it's not really necessary to lure me into anything."

She blushed and looked away. "I'm sorry. Would you believe me if I said it was involuntary?"

"No." Jan almost chuckled. He knew Koningschlanginne: hypnotism was always a choice. The men sniffed out the dead and the women entranced the living. The difference with Cleo was that she used her ability for the good stuff... many a cop had been talked into an unexpectedly good deed by Cleo. Even Tony DeMarcos.

"Well... it's involuntary with you." She met his gaze and the affectionate sincerity flowed off her in waves. "I've liked you a lot for ... quite some time now."

She freed her hands and slipped them across his shoulders, down his sides and down underneath his chest, making him breathe a little faster, faster still as she ran her thumbs under the ridge of his pectorals, then traced her fingertips down to his belt. Her feather-light exploration was making his eyes water and he gasped as she gently raked her nails back up to his chest and across both sides.

She chuckled. "It's a good job wesen don't come with labels. Yours would say 'to disable lion, tickle front.'"

The tension in his denims grew painfully. "That's not strictly... tickling... Cleo."

"Is it not? Oh dear. I'd better take it easy. We don't want to have to cut your hair again."

He raised a brow as she grinned unrepentantly in the dim light, resuming her stroke attack across his front. He tensed his legs against the growing pressure and reached over a little to snap the bedside light off.

She carried on teasing him. "So... where were we?"

Balancing on one arm, he moved one of her hands from his chest to his belt buckle and bent down for a kiss. "I think we were a little further down..."

**X x X**

It was the best wake-up call… ever. Nick's mobile thrummed, and thrummed, and thrummed with what was either a pile of texts coming in together, or one long one with about five pages to update. Both were right: he had a couple from Dula and Laurie to check he got picked up from Portland International ok, a one-liner from Aunt Marie to make sure he hadn't got himself killed in Mexico, and one from an unrecognised number which made him sit bolt upright because it began:

Hey Nick, I hope you don't mind that I got your number from Abi. I had to beat it out of her with a pan, but she gave it up eventually…

Juliette. Three months after his 'double-date' with her and Dale, Abi willingly acting as his decoy, she'd split with Dale but wanted to 're-think her life' before diving into anything else. Nick grinned in the gloom. It seemed that she'd done her re-thinking. She would kinda like to meet him for a drink. If he was free.

Thumbs shaking, he saved her number in his cell phone and punched the air. He lay still a little while, re-reading the text about twenty times, then decided he could get a little more dozing in before having to get up. He would answer at nine or so. Early enough to seem pleased and keen, but not so early as to seem crazed. He closed his eyes comfortably on the mattress from heaven, was just slipping into that dream state where he had partial control over what was going on (being undressed by Juliette), and then his cell alarm buzzed insistently at him.

He stumbled out of bed, snatched up the huge towel from the end of the bed and raked his fingers through his bed-hair as he made his way to the ground floor bathroom. He tried the handle. Occupied. He was about to try the upstairs bathroom when the door opened and a girl walked out, shower-wet and wrapped from armpit to shin in towel. She was small. And cheerful.

"Morning, honey!" She flashed him a brilliant smile and ducked under the arm he used to hold the door open.

"Uh... hey."

He didn't recognise her. He shrugged. Cute, though a little small for Jan. Or, at least, what he figured would be a decent-sized partner for Jan. He turned and saw the girl bound athletically up the stairs, not much caring if her towel fell off or not (it did). She looked down to pick it up and then winked at him.

Nick scooted into the shower room. Who the hell was his partner seeing? One of the frickin' Phoebes? She could be... apart from Big Phoebe, he'd never actually met any of them. They were usually just unhelpful voices on the other end of the phone — Freebie being a little more forthcoming than the others, at least. He stepped into the shower and the initial blast of icy water brought him to his senses — of COURSE Jan wouldn't screw a Phoebe.

If his informants were here — as wildly against protocol as that was — there had to be a really, really good reason for it. Nick suddenly felt a little apprehensive about 'going back to work'.

He cleaned up quickly and zipped back to his room to grab clean clothes from his rucksack. Pulling on a blue long-sleeved tee-shirt, he sauntered into the kitchen, switched on the coffee machine and made straight for the fridge to start unloading the contents onto the kitchen island.

As ever, Jan's refrigerator was rammed with good stuff and it was a real test of restraint to leave some of it still on the shelves. Nick idly wondered what Jan's daily calorie intake must be: not only was he vast, but he also kept himself very fit. 3,500 cals a day, maybe? No wonder he cleaned out a hulk-sized appliance by himself each week. He picked out cheeses, lean meats and a stack of condiment jars from the fridge, and, cheerfully over-loaded, freed up his right hand to swing it shut.

There was a staring, white-faced kitchen ghoul where the fridge door had been and Nick felt his feet clear the floor and his heart smack into his rib-cage as he almost flung everything he was holding into the air in fright. A couple packets of wrapped cheese bounced away, but he saved the peanut butter and jelly jars, gripping them with white knuckles and feeling his pulse slamming in his chest, neck and behind his eyes, which he kept squeezed shut.

"Oh... my.. GOD!" Half collapsing against the kitchen island, he slid his armful of stuff onto the surface and tried to bring his pulse back down. He opened his eyes gingerly. The ghoul was still standing there, staring at him impassively.

"Hey, Nick."

"Where the hell did you come from?"

"Upstairs."

"Right." Nick wiped his hand across his face shakily and got himself together while the kitchen ghoul helped herself to the coffee machine.

She was a super-petite, super-pale, smoky-eyed girl in her early twenties, with long, dyed black hair hanging over one eye, wearing one of Jan's tee shirts, which covered her like a dress. She was even smaller than the girl who'd come out of the bathroom, topping 5-2 and around 115lb at most. The ghoul handed him a coffee. He sipped and tried for some conversation, thinking he'd recognised her voice.

"Thanks. Are you Teeny?"

"No!" She shot him an annoyed look over her coffee cup, and just as he thought he'd mortally offended Jan's secret girlfriend, she added, "I'm Freebie."

Nick blinked. There was someone teenier than Freebie around? So who was it that came out of the bathroom? Hell. Enough guessing. He decided to be a good guest and lay the breakfast table. He put out all the plates he could find, not knowing how many more girls were going to pop up, then spotted the expression of alarm on Freebie's face, directed just past his shoulder.

"Teeny!"

He whipped round to follow her line of sight, and saw the smallest chick he'd ever seen in his life stagger disoriented down the last of the stairs and nearly pitch into the wall as she made her way into the kitchen, hands out in front of her. He sprinted over and grabbed her before she fell. His grip was a little awkward so he sat with his back to the wall and pulled her down against him, shaking her lightly by the shoulder. "Hey, you alright?"

"Woozy," she mumbled, and her back seemed hot against his front, even through their clothes. He put his hand on her forehead: she was spiking a nasty fever. Then she tipped sideways a little. Shit.

"JA-AAANN! One of your... Phoebes is sick!"

"Coming!" his partner yelled promptly from upstairs, and bounded down the steps in his boxers, hair wet and a towel round his neck. He hunkered down next to them and tipped the girl's face up with his fingertips. "Alice, can you hear me?"

"J'n?" She pulled her eyes open but they were glazed and bloodshot.

She drooped against Nick's front again. Her pulse was thin and fast and he got to his feet awkwardly, carrying her over to the couch so he could put her somewhere comfortable while he put everything back into the fridge. She'd also borrowed a tee-shirt from Jan, and it rode up, showing a lot of bruising. He met Jan's eyes and winced, keeping his views on all the informants staying over to himself for the time being.

"Looks like an emergency room trip to me."

"Absolutely. It'll be quicker for me to drive. I'll just get decent and fire the Toyota up. Freebie — could you round up Gianna and all your gear? Oh... and if you find Gianna in any room other than hers, feel free to haul her out with any force considered necessary."

Nick noted the uncharacteristically dark expression on Jan's face and the gleeful one on Freebie's, and they were both off like a shot to get straightened up. He zipped over to the tap, pulled a fresh cloth out of its packet by the sink, wet it, and bent next to her to rest it on her forehead. She mumbled something about ... trainers? and shifted awkwardly on the couch.

"S'alright," he murmured, rubbing her arm. "We'll get you some help."

She settled, and Nick spent a couple of minutes whizzing around the kitchen, putting everything back that he'd got out. He'd just hunkered back next to her when he spotted a tuft of thick black... animal hair on the rug by the front leg of the couch. He picked it up and turned it over gingerly in his fingers.

"Eugh!"

Given his partner's excessive approach to hospitality, he wouldn't put it past Jan to offer protection and housing to a sick mountain lion until the vet could pick it up... or something. Jan was trotting down the stairs just as he was inspecting it and coughed sheepishly, plucking it from his fingers and dumping it in the bin.

Nick dusted his hands off. "Is there some huge, nervous cat around here, somewhere? Like a new pet?"

"Yes there is, Nick. But alas, not a pet. Would you mind bringing Alice...?"

Nick switched focus to the girl on the couch, wrapping her over in the light sheet Jan had brought downstairs with her, and carried her out to the front seat of the Toyota while Jan fixed the angle so she was lying back as much as possible. It took Jan a moment to adjust things properly, but Teeny didn't grow heavy in his arms at all. He wondered whether she was actually under 100lb, or whether he was stronger than he thought he was.

Freebie sat directly behind Jan, being the least bothered by the lack of leg space, Gianna crammed herself into the middle of the back seat, leaving Nick to squeeze in behind Teeny. Gianna shot him a look that made him force-stripped and he found himself wishing that Big Phoebe was still with them, as scary as she was. Clearly something had happened to drive the girls to Jan's place last night in a hurry, but he was still a little surprised at Jan for putting them up rather than finding them a safe-house. Getting a little too close to the job...?

Treeview was closest, so Jan headed there with the siren on and flashing light on the roof and from the moment of carrying her through the doors of the ER, she was put on saline and broad-spectrum antibiotics and sent to an observation ward. They followed her gurney so they knew where she'd been placed, left Freebie with her, and Gianna chose to return to work. She sauntered off, hair rumpled and bag strap clutched in her hand, and Nick caught the hard look that Jan cast at her back as she disappeared down the steps from the second floor.

Nick managed to contain his curiosity until they got back into the car, and then it exploded out of him. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jan sighed as he gunned the engine. "What do you want to know?"

"Ok... for starters, who the fuck is Gianna, and why are they all staying at your place?" Nick knew he sounded harsh, but the morning felt like a bit of an onslaught.

His partner didn't reply for a few moments, and eventually Nick gave him a light poke.

"Hey... no sleep-driving, ok? And by the way... we're in the wrong lane. Gresham is that way―"

"PPD first for me, I'm afraid. I'll only be a half-hour or so, then it's onto Gresham. We should still get there for nine. You can either wait for me, or you can get a ride over there."

"Course I'll wait for you," Nick said irritably. "Why wouldn't I?"

Jan looked so overly focussed on traffic that wasn't remotely heavy that Nick got the impression that he was avoiding his gaze. Nick gave Jan a friendly fist-bop in the upper arm to ease the tension a little. He hadn't meant to sound so accusing. Particularly not to someone who'd saved his ass the last night.

"Ok... so... just tell me what position you've been put in? Because normally you're 'Mr Protocol'."

"Do me a favour, Nick? Let me just get us into Portland and park up, and then I can focus. I need time to put things together in my head. Is that ok?"

"Sounds sinister, but…. Ok."

Nick held his tongue all the way to the carpark off Nelson Street, where Jan zipped into a space barely vacated by a Suzuki and leapt out of the driver's seat with a grace that belied his size. Nick clambered out in a hurry. "Hey! What about explanations?"

"Food first! I can't think without food."

"Food?" Nick jogged after Jan to a small deli place on the corner that he'd walked past a zillion times as a uniform cop, which smelt totally outstanding from outside, but which he'd never gone into. Mostly because the steak sandwiches were about six bucks each. He checked the contents of his pockets and found a screwed up ten-spot bill. Ok, maybe that could buy him a tiny sandwich and he'd have enough for a couple of beers later until he'd made his phonecall to the bank and set his finances straight. And damn… it smelt so _nice_. There was a bit of a queue for the breakfast sub, all guys in designer suits.

Jan turned with a lopsided smile. "Before we get into the heavy stuff, did you sleep ok? Hopefully the girls didn't give you a hard time this morning?"

"Gianna's creepy and weird. Teeny didn't do anything untowards except faint all over me, and as for Freebie… I guess she was friendly enough once she'd scared the thundercrap out of me."

"I'm sorry?"

Nick explained his early morning heart-attack with Freebie's sudden appearance behind the fridge door.

Jan face-palmed. "Oh Lord. I'm so sorry. I'd forgotten about that little habit of hers."

"It's not your fault."

"No, I should've warned you about that one thing. I didn't tell you about the first time I met her, did I?"

Nick raised a brow. "What happened?"

"I parked the Toyota round the back of the club Freebie was working at the time, expecting to go in, signal to her, chat somewhere discreetly under cover of unsavoury relations, and then get back to my car. But I was early, so I just sat there waiting for a while for the club crowd to thicken up a little."

Nick grinned in advance. "Yeah...?"

"You know what my hearing's usually like. Well, it _completely _let me down. I didn't even hear the back door opening. I'd just bent down in my seat to dust lint off my denims or something, sat up, and then made eye-contact with this creature of darkness in the rearview mirror because she'd slipped across the seat. Good God, Nick... cardiac arrest doesn't even cover it."

Nick pursed his lips, struggling to keep a violent chuckle under wraps. "Were you ok?"

"No! I cracked my head on the roof. I thought I was ok until I was debriefing Wilson, nodded a little too emphatically and woke up on her floor, staring at the ceiling. She went into a very brief panic until I explained that I'd already hurt my neck because I'd been severely alarmed by a prostitute. Her reaction wasn't fun."

They were next in line so Nick was able to giggle silently behind Jan as he ordered 'the usual double'. Oh God… hero. Subsidised breakfast. Nick pinged next to Jan and snatched one of the two half-baguettes as soon as it appeared on the steel deli top, cramming it into his mouth joyfully. It was beautiful. Perfect steak, the right amount of mustard, immaculately caramelised onions… it was all he could do to prevent himself from making inappropriate enjoyment noises in a public place. Jan watched him enjoying the sandwich for a moment, then turned mildly back to the guy behind the counter.

"Better make that three, Henri."

Nick stomped mid-chomp.

"Uh…. They were both for you, weren't they?" Damn. Of _course_ they were both for Jan. He was huge and could afford twelve-buck lunches/brunches, whatever. He felt just the teensiest bit embarrassed.

"No worries, Nick. We both got robbed of breakfast this morning, it seems."

Nick offered his crumpled note but Jan just laughed and waved it away. Nick shrugged cheerfully. The less money Jan felt he owed him, the better. He paused briefly to say hey to Jason, who appeared from the back room of the Deli, and they had a quick chat about the catch-up classes he was doing at school before Nick followed Jan back to the Spyder to finish their breakfast.

They both shut the door and Jan cleared his throat. "So, your questions. Gianna: she's a fucking nightmare. If it wasn't for her first-class intel, I'd have cracked her down for persistent soliciting quite some time ago."

Nick was a little taken aback at the suddenness with which Jan was volunteering information. "Is she the new Big Phoebe, or something? What happened to her, anyway?"

"She got out of the game after Berlingo snatched her. She left for New Hampshire to stay with the one college friend who hadn't completely given up on her. But she left a void, because as you recall, Big Phoebe was…"

"The group bodyguard," Nick figured. He'd never really been allowed into that particular world of informants. Not that Jan hadn't tried enforcing the 'trust me, trust Nick' principle, but some degrees of suspicion clearly couldn't be overcome readily. "And Gianna came into this, when?"

"About a month ago, in connection with one of my earlier cases. You remember the second time we met? The tree-flinging incident?"

"Unlikely to forget it," Nick said, but he said it with a smile.

"You may recall that I looked like shit that day."

"Dragged through a work-over machine backwards, yeah. You never did explain."

"Alright, so, the previous night, I got into a tangle with two guys working the container yards. I was only there to let them know about growing evidence of human trafficking in the area and to give them cargo watchlists to check on, but they reacted like perps. One fairly painful fight later, we got them in custody, but others have taken over where they left off."

Jan took a thoughtful bite on his sandwich. "Gianna came out of one of the containers that was offloaded at the docks six months ago. She was in a bad way the first three months, but hooked up with Teeny and Freebie pretty recently. The information she's given me has led to some names, shipment times and … long story short, the girls that are being sent over here are pushing the current sex workers out of the market. Gianna is meant to be one of them. But someone's preying on them. All of them. Not just the existing girls like the Phoebes, but the new ones, too. I've written a paper on dealing with the immediate hands-on policing requirements of protecting local sex workers, but it's got to get through DeMarcos, so…. hmmm."

Nick mentally Hmmmmed with him. Fat chance. DeMarcos did not do inventive policing. "So these preying people, is that why G and the Phoebes turned up on your doorstep last night?"

"They've been sharing the same pimp-funded address for a while, now. They got busted into yesterday evening by a couple of guys who claimed that an 'arrangement' had been made. Which they knew was bullshit, because their operating area is not where they sleep at night. Freebie was already concerned that Alice was off-colour, so she wanted to call me to pick them up to go to hospital. Unfortunately, Gianna had been following me enough that she knew where to direct a cab, so they came straight to mine. Freebie was unhappy about it. Teeny just seemed dazed last night. There was no indication that she was sick."

"So…. if you weren't worried about Teeny, why did you take them in?"

"The safehouse rule only applies to recognised witnesses. Informants aren't covered, regardless of how scared shitless they are. That's part of the problem. I can deal with Gianna giving me the eyes and I can grip her wrist pretty meaningfully if her hands dive the wrong direction, but God… she so nearly got herself knocked out by Cleo last night."

Nick slid Jan a slow sideways grin and locked a gaze on him at about the same moment that Jan was butting his forehead against the steering wheel.

"Oh for FUCK'S SAKE!"

"Cleo's your secret…. Ummm..?

"YES!"

Nick's earlier urge to laugh himself silly came back to the surface and he chewed his sleeve to contain his composure. "You know… I meet guys all the time that start the conversation with 'I cannot tell a lie..' and then bullshit constantly for the next ten minutes. But you seriously can't, can you? Truth just flooooows out of you like water from a tap―"

"I used to be the secretive, safe guy, you know? It was like 'If you need help but need to keep this under wraps, tell Jan'. Not any more! What the _hell_ is going on with me?"

Jan looked so distraught that Nick clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "I won't tell a soul, you know?"

"Thank you. Because Cleo's not a soft operator and possibly would _murder_ me if―"

"Jan! I get it! I work with her too, remember?"

His partner half-collapsed with relief. "Thanks. And incidentally, not that I want to lead you down the wrong path, but if you could also leave it to me to explain to Wilson why I felt the need―"

"―To accommodate three working girls overnight?" Nick pulled a face but clapped Jan on the shoulder. "Trust me, I'm keeping my mouth shut on that one. Just brief me if you need back-up, alright?"

"I'll do that with the rest of the team once the paper's gone through," Jan promised. He finished his second sandwich, although Nick didn't remember him even finishing his first, and they locked up and headed for PPD.

"Why are we here anyway?" Nick asked, as they were halfway up the stairs. More staff announcements?

"Ah… no. I have a disciplinary hearing. But like I said, you don't need to stick around for that."

"WHAT?"

Jan shrugged. "I'm expecting a good outcome, so it shouldn't last long."

To Nick this sounded like a large slam against a discordant, ancient gong. Jan was Mr Mild, well-behaved and by-the-book. "Why have you got a disciplinary hearing?"

"Four assault arrests were made after you were attacked in the shopping mall. Two of them were straightforward. Two of the guys felt that I used excessive force."

Nick stared at Jan's exaggerated flippancy as he headed for the Captain's office. "And did you?"

"In hindsight…. Yes."

"JAN!"

The big guy finally stopped and turned. Nick stared him straight in the eye, defying a vague response. "Don't walk away from me like that! I happen to care about what happens, you know? What happens if this doesn't go well?"

"I get dismissed. But I don't think that'll happen."

Nick didn't get a chance to protest to that. Tony DeMarcos had already opened the office door.

**X x X**

_**Part two coming soon! (though part 10 of The Blutbau Cometh may come first…)**_


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